Player Profile(#45)...Matthew Hayden (Australia)

Matthew Lawrence Hayden (born 29 October 1971) is an Australian cricketer. He was born in Kingaroy, Queensland to Laurence and Moya Hayden. He was educated at Marist College in Ashgrove and he is an Australian and Queensland representative cricketer.

Hayden (nicknames: Haydos, Unit) is a powerful and aggressive left hand opening batsman, known for his ability to score quickly at both Test and one day levels. He is particularly proficient when hitting down the ground. Hayden currently holds the record for the highest scores made by an Australian batsman in both the Test (380) and One Day International (181 not out) arenas. He formed one of the most prolific opening partnerships in world Test cricket for Australia with Justin Langer, and in ODI cricket with Adam Gilchrist. He is currently partnered with Simon Katich as an opener in the Australian Test team.

Test career:
Hayden debuted for the Australian team in the 1994 March 4-8 Test Match against South Africa in Johannesburg, scoring 15 and 5. His next Test selection was in the 1996/7 season, with three each against the West Indies and South Africa. He made his debut century (125 against WI in Adelaide) aided by multiple dropped catches by the West Indies side. His average of 21.7 was not enough to keep his position in the Australian side, and in particular openers Mark Taylor and Matthew Elliott. He was dropped from the team, and it appeared his international career was over, compared occasionally to that of Graeme Hick, a fine domestic performer with not quite enough to make it at the highest level.

During these years Hayden was a prolific batsman for the Queensland first-class cricket team. Weight of domestic cricket runs and persistence resulted in a resurrection of his international career for the 1999-00 tour of New Zealand. In the subsequent 2000-01 tour of India he averaged a Bradmanesque 109.80 with 549 runs, an Australian record for a three-Test series. Since then, he has been an automatic selection for the Test side. In the 2007-08 series against India, Hayden scored three centuries, raising his tally of centuries against India to five. He currently has thirty test centuries to his name, the first left-handed opening batsman to achieve this feat.

In 2001, Hayden scored a then-Australian record of 1,391 runs in Test matches in one calendar year, and subsequently won the Allan Border Medal as the best Australian player of the year. He picked up where he left off the following season with a seven-hour 119 against Pakistan in the Sharjah heat, which approached 50 degrees celsius.

He scored over 1,000 Test runs in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005, the first man to achieve the feat five times. He was selected as one of Wisden's five 2003 Cricketers of the Year and briefly held the world record for the highest Test score, 380, which he reached at the WACA against Zimbabwe on 10 October 2003, having batted only five sessions. As of July 2008, Hayden had the third highest conversion-rate in history, with a Test century every 3.13 Tests played, behind only Don Bradman at 1.79, and Clyde Walcott at 2.93.

Despite these achievements, Hayden has received criticism from some quarters for being a "flat-track bully". Critics have contrasted his ability to score big runs on ideal batting pitches against weak attacks, with how he was troubled during the 2005 Ashes by the less batsman-friendly English conditions. Against a high-quality swing and pace attack, the "fantastic foursome" of Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones, he averaged a meagre 35.33 across the five-match series. With his Test spot under pressure going into the Fifth Test at the Oval, Hayden rescued his career with a hard-fought 138 from 303 balls. His 21st Test century signalled a return to form for Hayden for the the Australian season of 2007/08, scoring three centuries in three consecutive Tests against the ICC World XI and West Indies. Hayden scored one century during the Boxing Day Test against South Africa, and another in the away series in South Africa played in March 2006.

Hayden played in the highly-anticipated 2006-07 Ashes series, against England. He failed to reach 40 in the first three innings of the series, but again returned to form with scores of 92 in Perth, and 153 in the Boxing Day Test. The century at Melbourne continued Hayden's rich vein of form at the MCG, being his fifth in eight Tests there.

Hayden's defenders point out that he was not alone in finding England tough-going in 2005, as even Australia's captain and talisman Ricky Ponting averaged under forty, while other big names such as Adam Gilchrist and Damien Martyn failed to impress with averages near twenty.

Hayden has also been a regular and successful slip fielder for Australia, and has taken the thirteenth-most catches by a non-wicketkeeper in Test history. He also shares the record for the most catches by a non-wicketkeeper in a single Test Match, with seven against Sri Lanka in 2004. His most notable fielding partnership was with Shane Warne, with the "caught Hayden, bowled Warne" dismissal being the equal third most common partnership for a non-wicketkeeper and bowler: their 39 wickets are behind only "caught Taylor, bowled Warne" and "caught Dravid, bowled Kumble".

Hayden's most notable opening batting partner was Justin Langer. The opening pair represented Australia in more than 100 Test innings. The pair made 5654 runs while batting together in partnerships, with an average of 51 runs per partnership; only Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes of the West Indies have scored more Test runs as a partnership, with 6482.

ODI:
Hayden also played in the Australian side that won the 2003 One Day International Cricket World Cup. He was dropped from the ODI squad because of poor form after The Ashes in 2005, though he could not be kept away from the ODI squad for long. He returned to the Australian squad in the 2006-07 Australian season after Simon Katich fell out of favour and Shane Watson was injured. He dominated the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies as the tournament's best batsman in 2007, scoring three centuries before the completion of the Super 8s section of the tournament.

On 20 February 2007, Matthew Hayden posted his highest ODI score (181 not out) against New Zealand at Seddon Park in Hamilton. Australia posted 346 for 5 wickets and New Zealand replied with 350 for 9 wickets and won the Chappel-Hadlee series 3-0.

Hayden hit another milestone against the Kiwis when he become only the third person (the others being Mark Waugh and Sourav Ganguly) to hit 3 centuries (101 vs RSA, 158 vs WI, 103 vs NZ) in a single World Cup tournament on 20 April 2007. The century against South Africa came off just 66 balls and is the fastest World Cup ton ever beating the previous record set by John Davison. The Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis awarded Hayden with honorary citizenship after the match.

Hayden also became only the second player in World Cup history to surpass 600 runs in a single tournament. He needed to score a further 52 runs to equal the record that was set by Sachin Tendulkar in the previous World Cup but fell short by 14 runs. He ended the tournament with 659 runs at an average of 73.22.

In September 2007, Hayden was named ODI Player of the Year after his dominating performance throughout the World Cup. An extraordinary performance considering his place in the Australian side was in jeopardy during the Australian VB Series against England and New Zealand. He officially holds the record for being the top runs scorer in the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, scoring 265 runs in the whole tournament.

Matthew Hayden played for the Chennai outfit Chennai Super Kings in the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) in April 2008. After a poor run of form in the Test arena during 2008, Hayden was dropped from the ODI and Twenty20 squad in January 2009. It still remains unclear as to whether his test career is continuing after so many recent failed test match innings.

England County:
Hayden has played in the English County Championship, first with Hampshire in 1997 and prominently as captain of Northamptonshire in 1999-2000.

Controversies:
He was a party to the controversy that emerged from the Second Test, 2007-08 Border-Gavaskar Trophy racism charges pressed by Australia against India, and was one of the witnesses for Andrew Symonds` charges against Harbhajan Singh.

As a fallout of that instance in February 2008, Hayden was charged for a code of conduct violation by Cricket Australia, for calling the Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh an obnoxious little weed, and for inviting Indian fast bowler Ishant Sharma for a fight, during an interview aired on Brisbane radio station; he was also heard to mimic Sharma`s Indian accent in this exchange.

He was reprimanded for his comment by Cricket Australia, but maintained his innocence.

He was strongly criticized by the BCCI and former Pakistan team captain Wasim Akram for reportedly calling India a third world country. Back home after a 2–0 series defeat by India, Hayden spoke about, what he perceived, poor ground conditions and inordinate delays during the matches "that happen in Third World countries".


Personal life:

In 2000, Hayden's boat capsized whilst sailing near North Stradbroke Island; he and his two companions (one of whom was Queensland and Australian teammate Andrew Symonds) were forced to swim a kilometre to safety.

In his spare time, Hayden is a keen cook and occasionally prepares meals for his team-mates while on tour. A collection of his recipes was published in Australia in 2004 as The Matthew Hayden Cookbook. A second book, The Matthew Hayden Cookbook 2, was published in 2006.

Hayden uses a Gray-Nicolls bat with a fluorescent pink grip, to highlight and support research into a cure for breast cancer. This is at least in part inspired by his team-mate Glenn McGrath's wife struggle with this illness.

He is married to Kellie Hayden (née Culey), and they have a daughter named Grace (born June 2002), and two sons named Joshua (born 15 April 2005) and Thomas Joseph (born May 2007).

Hayden is a devout Roman Catholic and says "When I’m in trouble, I ask: ‘What would Christ do?'"

He is patron of Parent Project Australia, a charity fighting for a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Matthew Hayden is an Ambassador for World Youth Day 2008.

Links to more information on Matthew Hayden:

Cricinfo.com profile on Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden on Qldcricket.com.au

Matthew Hayden Wallpapers





*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owners of pictures and videos used.

Player Profile(#28)...Graeme Smith (South Africa )

Graeme Craig Smith (born 1 February 1981 in Johannesburg) is a South African cricketer, and the current captain of the South African cricket team, having succeeded Shaun Pollock after the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

A tall and attacking left-handed opening batsman, on the 2003 South African tour of England he made double centuries in consecutive Test matches: 277 at Edgbaston, and 259 at Lord's. The 277 is the highest individual innings ever made for South Africa, and the 259 is the highest score ever made at Lord's by a foreign player.

Known for the success of his opening partnership with Herschelle Gibbs, South Africa's most prolific ever opening partnership, Smith has the distinction of having been part of all four of South Africa's opening partnerships of over 300 runs: in three of them he was partnered by Gibbs, and in 2008 Smith added 415 for the first wicket with Neil McKenzie against Bangladesh, a world record opening partnership.

Born and raised in Johannesburg, Smith was educated at King Edward VII School.

Smith played three Under-19s tests and seven one day internationals for South Africa Under-19s, of which five were during the Under 19 Cricket World Cup. He scored one fifty in the test matches, but scored five half centuries in the one dayers. Smith was also awarded the South African Cricketer of the Year award for his performances in the 2001–02 South Africian cricket season.

Graeme Smith has played for a number of cricket teams in South Africa. He currently plays for Western Province cricket team but due to his international commitments, his appearances for them have been limited, his last game for them being on October 28, 2004. In total he has played 17 games for Western Province scoring 1,312 runs with four centuries at an average of 46.85. He has also played for other teams in South Africa including United Cricket Board of South Africa Invitation XI and Western Province Boland.

He has also played county cricket for Somerset in the 2005 English cricket season, captaining the club for part of the 2005 season, and he scored a century in a tour match against the Australians in preparation for the 2005 Ashes series. Against Leicestershire at Taunton he scored his maiden first-class triple hundred (311 off 255 balls). He also hit 105 in the Twenty20 Cup match against Northamptonshire, which is currently the 11th highest score in the domestic Twenty20 Cup competition. Smith also captained the team to victory on finals day to secure the Twenty20 Cup trophy, making 64 not out from 47 balls in the final.

In 2008 Graeme Smith played in the inaugural Indian Premier League for Rajasthan Royals. His opening partnership with Swapnil Asnodkar achieved significant success.

Smith made his Test debut for South Africa in 2002 in Cape Town against Australia, batting at number three and scoring 68 in the second innings. Promoted to open the batting with Herschelle Gibbs against Bangladesh in his third Test match, Smith scored 200. In the following home series against Pakistan, Smith (who scored 151) and Gibbs (228) shared a first-wicket stand of 368, a national record until bettered by Smith and Neil MacKenzie's 415, and at the time the fourth highest opening partnership in Test history. Following the 2003 Cricket World Cup and Shaun Pollock's subsequent resignation, Smith was selected as captain for South Africa's next Test. The decision was criticised as it was felt that he had shown 'few leadership credentials': he had played only eight Test matches and 22 ODIs before being given the captaincy. Graeme Smith was only 22 years and 82 days old when he captained his first match against Bangladesh, the youngest ever South African captain.

During the tour of England in 2003 he made double centuries in consecutive test matches: 277 (and 85 from 70 balls in the second innings) in the first Test at Edgbaston, and 259 in an innings victory in the second Test at Lord's. His 277 was the highest individual Test innings scored by a South African, surpassing the previous record of 275 held jointly by Darryl Cullinan and Gary Kirsten; his 259 at Lord's is the highest score at the ground by a foreign player, breaking the record of 254 by Sir Donald Bradman. These performances prompted Alec Stewart to call him "the most impressive 22-year-old I have seen in cricket". This outstanding run of form could have continued but for an unusual dismissal: in the third Test at Trent Bridge Smith, on 35, played back to Andrew Flintoff and trod on his stumps to be dismissed hit wicket. Smith did not pass 20 again in the series as a galvanised England won the match and fought back to draw the series 2–2, but Smith nonetheless finished the series with an aggregate of 714 runs at an average of 79.33, and was named player of the series (jointly with Flintoff).

During the year 2004 South Africa had a significantly less successful run in ODI cricket than they would have expected, with a 5–1 series loss to New Zealand and a 5–0 series loss to Sri Lanka. They had beaten the West Indies 3–1 earlier in the year, but South African cricket was described as being in a state of 'freefall'. In Test matches also South Africa suffered a poor run with series losses to England, India and Sri Lanka. They did nevertheless win a home Test series against the West Indies (with Smith and Gibbs sharing their third 300-run opening partnership).

Although initially regarded as an inexperienced captain, his growth in the role was evidenced when he was selected to captain the ICC World XI in the ICC Super Series Test Match between the ICC World XI and Australia in October 2005.

South Africa won a Test series in the West Indies in 2005, with Smith scoring centuries in three consecutive Tests: 148 at the Queen's Park Oval, 104 at the Kensington Oval and 126 at Antigua. However, their tour of Australia, and Australia's subsequent return tour in the 2005–06 season were disappointments for Smith, as they succumbed to a 2–0 defeat in Australia, and a 3–0 whitewash at home. Pride was restored when Smith led his team to victory in South Africa's win over Australia in a One Day International at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, on March 12, 2006. Australia set South Africa a world record 434–4 from 50 overs, which was successfully chased by South Africa who reached 438–9 with a ball to spare. Smith scored 90 runs off 55 balls in the chase, and shared in a second wicket partnership of 187 runs with Herschelle Gibbs. The result gave South Africa in a 3–2 series victory over the Australians.

In the first ODI against Pakistan on February 4, 2007, Smith hit an over bowled by Naved-ul-Hasan for 27 runs, and became the first player in ODI history to hit six fours off an over; Smith scored 72 from 47 balls as South Africa totalled 392–6, the highest ODI total ever made against a Test nation (excluding Zimbabwe) apart from the two innings of the aforementioned Wanderers match between Australia and South Africa. As captain he led the South African cricket team through 20 consecutive undefeated matches in One Day Internationals in 2005. In early 2007 Smith's South Africans replaced Australia on top of the official ICC rankings for ODI cricket but returned to second place after mixed results in the 2007 ICC World Cup thus far after losing to Australia by eight wickets. In the 2007 World Cup he started the tournament with four successive 50s, a feat never before achieved by a captain.

During the second Test against Bangladesh at Chittagong in begun on February 29, 2008 Smith (who scored 232) and Neil McKenzie (226) put on a world record 415 for the first wicket. The partnership beat the previous first-wicket record of 413 which had been set in 1956 by Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy. They had finished day one with 405 runs on the board which was the most ever put on by a pair in a single day of Test cricket without losing a wicket. The partnership was Smith's fourth opening partnership of over 300 runs, and his sixth of over 200 runs, both Test records.

Smith was once accused by West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo of racial abuse, but was cleared of those allegations. He has however, been punished several times by the International Cricket Council for various infringements, mostly for dissent and slow over rates.

He has had a difficult relationship with South African-born English batsman Kevin Pietersen. Graeme Smith once said "I'm patriotic about my country, and that's why I don't like Kevin Pietersen". This refers to Pietersen who was brought up in South Africa leaving there to join England. Pietersen has described Graeme Smith as an "absolute muppet" in his book Crossing the Boundary.

Smith has also had problems with the current Test England captain Michael Vaughan during the 2004–05 England tour of South Africa over a dispute concerning bad light during the 4th test in Smith's native Johannesburg. In Vaughan's second book Calling the Shots Vaughan refers to Smith as "the witness".Vaughan lost his entire match fee for the match after the dispute.

Cricinfo profile

Graeme Smith Career Averages

Official Website