< 1 minute read If there was one thing that was highly awful about Test cricket in the early 2000s, it was having to endure Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer opening the batting for Australia. Then they retired and how we rejoiced. Only now Test cricket is even worse because they’re still around and
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2 minute read “It will be like two balls of mercury on the one plate,” according to Matthew Hayden. Regular readers of this website will know that Hayden is currently serving as Pakistan’s batting coach and principle guff-talker. Justin Langer is of course Australia’s current head coach and principle guff-talker. Way back when,
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2 minute read One of the defining qualities of Matthew Hayden’s guff-talking is his habit of throwing in a load of additional words that add precisely nothing to what he is trying to say. We’re going to talk to you about three recent examples. Last time around – back when Hayden first took
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3 minute read If you don’t know Indian yogi and author “Sadhguru” (Jaggi Vasudev), he’s kind of a big deal. The Isha Foundation that he set up in 1992 is said to have over nine million volunteers. A lot of people like Sadhguru. They think he’s wise. In August 2019, Sadhguru agreed to
Continue reading< 1 minute read We’ve tried to give up writing about Matthew Hayden’s habit of talking a load of incomprehensible bollocks, but as the man himself says in a recent interview on Cricinfo: “Sometimes things are just meant to be, aren’t they? You just have to give in to the higher forces and say,
Continue reading< 1 minute read We used to fear this kind of thing, but it’s all been put in perspective by this: The holiday ends with you having a barbecue with the man himself. At least he’s a good cook. “Yes, I could definitely eat a 14th steak if you’d be good enough to go
Continue reading< 1 minute read Apparently Jimmy Anderson once hit Michael Clarke in the head with a pad because Clarke was being a knobhead. It’s a slightly disappointing story overall, but made faintly interesting by the subplots revolving around Damien Martyn. Apparently, Jimmy was sitting in the changing rooms and Michael Clarke was giving off
Continue reading< 1 minute read 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
Continue reading< 1 minute read 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
Continue reading< 1 minute read 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
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