The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : ‘Hayden was overaggressive in Mohali’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 29, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Cricket

‘Hayden was overaggressive in Mohali’

Melbourne: Captain Ricky Ponting has made it known to Matthew Hayden that the opener had made a mistake by overdoing his aggression as it cut his batting stint short during the second innings of the Mohali Test against India which Australia lost by 320 runs.

Chasing a mammoth fourth innings target of 516, Hayden came out with all guns blazing and took on the Indian fast bowlers, particularly Zaheer Khan, and raced to 29 off 20 balls.

But Hayden did not stop his aggressive batting even after the introduction of Harbhajan Singh and was dismissed by the Indian off-spinner’s first delivery in that innings.

Slowed down

Ponting said, in his column in The Australian, that Hayden should have slowed down and curbed his aggression by the time Harbhajan was introduced.

“I’ve made a point of talking to every player at some stage during training over the past couple of days just to see how they’re going. That includes a good chat with Hayden about the way he batted during the second innings of the second Test, when he took on Zaheer Khan.

“Haydos (Hayden) plays his best cricket when he gets himself locked into a one-on-one battle with a bowler. There’s no doubt about that. When you see him glaring back at the bowler you know he’s really up for the contest.

“He went beyond that in the second innings with Zaheer after the bowler had dismissed him in the first three innings. Haydos wanted to put the pressure back on the bowler but he was actually through that stage,” he said.

“He got to 29 and didn’t need to go hard any more. He’d won that battle and there was a change of bowler. Harbhajan came on and I think he could have pulled the reins in a little bit then and played a different way,” Ponting wrote.

“He (Hayden) totally agreed with that and knew he had made a bit of a mistake,” Ponting added.

Not mincing words

The Aussie skipper also did not mince words that pace spearhead Brett Lee has failed to live up to expectations.

“Brett Lee’s probably been putting extra pressure on himself. He was obviously disappointed after the second Test. He was one of a number of players who didn’t meet their expectations, including me.

“It’s important to do what he’s done: have a couple of days of reflection and then get that all out of the way and look at what needs to be done for this Test and give himself the best possible chance of playing well. Everything that’s come out of his mouth and his actions in the past few days have been spot on.

“He’s been in the gym doing extra weights and doing extra running and bowling sessions, so he’s giving himself every opportunity to be ready for this game. To see him take things on like that and have a bit of an extra spring in his step about it will be great for him and hopefully rub off on the rest of the team.” — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport