Matthew Hayden

This has to be the last Matthew Hayden post

In 2006, we started writing about how Matthew Hayden spoke bollocks. At that point, his batting drew most people’s attention and it hadn’t been widely acknowledged that the man was sucking all meaning out of words and then piling them together arbitrarily. Now everyone has noticed.

Even Michael Atherton’s slagging him off for talking nonsense now, so in many ways our work is done. The world is well-equipped to mock Hayden’s cod-business guff-talking without us.

And yet we’ve continued. Every time that we feel like we’re out, he pulls us back in. The man’s retired, so he should no longer be a target, but there he is evaluating Phil Hughes or launching The Hayden Way. Sometimes it’s just too easy.

Our latest article for Cricinfo comes as a result of Hayden investing in the Big Bash League. It has to be the last thing we do about Matthew Hayden, but we fear it won’t be. It says it all that Cricinfo usually add a disclaimer about all quotes being made-up, but it wasn’t necessary in this instance, because we used genuine quotes. The man is officially a self-parody.

Read it here.

Matthew Hayden Ashes reaction

Even now, people often ask us to write about Matthew Hayden. We never do.

Partly it’s that Hayden has retired and is therefore no longer ‘a target’. Mostly it’s just that we don’t like doing what people ask us to do.

With that in mind, we’d like to emphasise that our recent Cricinfo Ashes piece featuring Hayden was NOT written to please anyone.

That said, it’s gone down amazingly well in the comments section, with one person saying that Alan Tyers is merely 10 times better than us. Another, who really seems to like it, describes us as being ‘almost as good as Andrew Hughes’.

Shane Watson, Andrew Symonds and the scented candle – an abbreviated anecdote

Watson thought the changing room stank and lit a scented candle. Andrew Symonds gave him shit for it.

Andrew Symonds comes out of this well; Shane Watson less so.

This tale comes from Matthew Hayden’s autobiography.

We hope we get a review copy. Buying Matthew Hayden’s autobiography would effectively mean giving him money and that would amount to tacit approval of the man.

Matthew Hayden still has the skills

Another verse has been added to the Gospel According to Haydos.

“As the stars have aligned, they have really put me in the box seat as to the controlling interest for growing our sport in our regional and indigenous communities.”

Everyone quickly point and laugh.

Now back to county cricket.

Matthew Hayden is a bit rusty

Matthew Hayden’s been out of international cricket for a while now. It’s natural that he’d be a bit rusty. We’re not talking in terms of his batting. We’re talking in terms of his guff talking.

He’s not totally lost it though:

“This game, coming tomorrow night, is the opportunity to have that decision to find our balance and play the cricket that our talent is capable of.”

He’s also spoken about the fear of getting hit by the ball:

“Only if I watched it and executed the hundreds of thousands of balls that I have hit over my lifetime could I focus my energy on that.”

That’s The Hayden Way.

What is The Hayden Way?

Sami has just pointed us towards The Hayden Way.

It’s currently a one page website which we might as well reproduce in its entirety:

So what does The Hayden Way do?

It prides itself on the delivery of unnecessary apostrophes.

Mongoose in the IPL – most inevitable press release ever

There aren’t many things you can rely upon in this world, but the Mongoose marketing department is one. Sometimes Mongoose press releases take unexpected forms, but their arrival is inevitable.

After Matthew Hayden used the Mongoose to hit many of the 93 runs he hit off 43 balls for Chennai Super Kings against Delhi Daredevils, we said to a colleague: “How long until the press release?”

Two hours.

It’s not a very good press release. The only real highlight is a hint at a potential pastime for Hayden when he gets a bit older:

“I look forward to bringing it out again to entertain once more.”

“The suspect showed no remorse for his crimes nor the effect they had on the Kingaroy women’s tennis team, therefore he has been sentenced to 100 hours community service.”

Matthew Hayden and the Mongoose – together at last

Considering that Matthew Hayden and the Mongoose cricket bat are two of our favourite things to talk about on this site, you’d think we’d have more to say about this:

The heading on the press release says:

Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds to ‘let loose the Goose’

We should DEFINITELY have something to say about that…

The Gospel According to Haydos

During his appearances on Test Match Special, Matthew Hayden has rather surprisingly revealed a hitherto concealed ability to talk sense. More reassuringly, he’s also been showcasing his nonsense, which is what we’re more interested in.

No-one talks meaningless bollocks quite like Matthew Hayden. Consider the following examples – all from one commentary stint:

• “It’s not a question of skills. It’s a question of execution.”
• About post-2005: “We had to identify what was important to our core values.”
• “The distinguishing features of my Baggy Green was the blood, sweat and tears.”

Please help us document  Hayden’s linguistic crimes in the comments below…

Matthew Hayden approves of Phil Hughes

Matthew Hayden has given Phil Hughes, his successor as Australia’s opener, his seal of approval.

We know what you’re all wondering: How has Hayden expressed this? The answer, of course, is ‘badly’:

“He’s got all the evidence and the skillsets he needs. His humbling personality and how respectful he is are two elements of the baggy green culture.”

Issues

• Evidence of what?
• ‘Skillset’ is a word that needs stamping out
• If ’skillset’ is a word, it refers to a set of skills. A person has a skillset, not multiple skillsets. The word Hayden is after here is ’skills’.
• ‘Humbling’ means ‘to make humble’, so presumably Phil Hughes swans around the place like some sort of emperor.
• There is no ‘baggy green culture’. It’s a hat, you headgear-fetishising knobhead.

In summary: Matthew Hayden still loves to add extra bits to normal words to try and make himself sound like he knows something, blissfully unaware that in reality it marks him out as a self-important dullard.