/ 1 May 2009

Extended view of the greats

These are interesting times for Matthew Hayden. Coming to terms with retirement at the age of 37 is an ‘interesting” time for any sportsman, but in Hayden’s case the transition into the real world has been interrupted by a stark reminder that he remains one of the most destructive batsmen in the world.

Most people might assume that smashing IPL (Indian Premier League) bowling attacks all over South Africa might have clouded his conviction that retiring when he did, just after the third Test against South Africa in Sydney in January, was the right thing to do.

But Hayden is an ‘enforcer” in everything he does so, although he is clearly enjoying the big stage again, any tendency toward regret would be tantamount to admitting that he may have jumped too early, that he may have given in to media pressure to retire. And ‘Haydos” doesn’t do ‘wrong”.

Having had his wife and three children with him for the two-week pre-tournament camp with the Chennai SuperKings, Hayden has spent the tournament as a single man and indulged in his passion, which is not cricket.

You have to actually be a surfer (or sleep with one regularly) to really understand what it is that makes them ‘tick” and why they insist on calling the sea ‘the ocean”.

Hayden always described cricket as his job although surfing was his passion. For the first eight days of the tournament Hayden went from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, back to Cape Town and then to Durban — and spent time in the ocean on every one of them.

The day before the SuperKings game at St George’s Park he drove down to Jeffrey’s Bay to meet up with a group of surfing buddies acquired over the past decade and spent so long in the sea — sorry, ocean — that he ended up staying the night and driving back on the morning of the match before top scoring with 65 from just 35 balls.

Hayden has another distraction on tour, too. His biographer is travelling with him — well, a few paces behind, actually — compiling a story that, if told honestly, will be utterly compelling. A reputation for having one of the sharpest and least sensitive tongues in the game, the chapter entitled ‘Sledging” will be the one most thumbed in Brisbane book shops.

He isn’t the only man to prove that T20 cricket will provide an additional window at the end of great players’ careers to continue the show for a little longer.

Adam Gilchrist has been completely revived by a year off and re-inspired by the captaincy of the Deccan Chargers; and Warnie is just Warnie, as good as ever. Sanath Jayasuriya and Anil Kumble have also had their moments in the sun, or drizzle.

Only Glenn McGrath has failed to shine, mostly because he hasn’t played a game yet. The pace bowling legend was said to be coping as well as could be expected in the aftermath of his wife Jane’s death in June last year and, having the children, James and Holly with their grandparents, he packed his bags to join the Daredevils for a second season.

Soon after arrival, however, he found he wasn’t emotionally ready to play a part. The artificiality of so much, the utterly confused and compromised priorities of the majority of people involved with and administering the IPL, it wasn’t what a grieving husband with two children 10 000 miles away needed. But he has a contract and he has honour, so he stayed.