Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden believes Michael Hussey would have won a 100-meter sprint against MS Dhoni in his peak.
MS Dhoni is commonly regarded as one of the world’s quickest runners between the wickets. Notably, despite being 12 years older, he once defeated Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya in a 100-meter dash.
Hayden, however, claimed that Hussey would have beaten Dhoni in a 100-meter dash. He made those comments while speaking to ESPNcricinfo.
A quick 100 metre dash between @msdhoni and @hardikpandya7. Any guesses on who won it in the end? #TeamIndia #INDvSL pic.twitter.com/HpboL6VFa6
— BCCI (@BCCI) December 13, 2017
He further claimed that being careless in the field is the best method to irritate MS Dhoni during the chat. According to Hayden:
“MS Dhoni is pretty unflappable, but if you really want to give him the shivers, just have a slack fielding effort and don’t contribute in the field. That’s one of the few times that you look at him go, ‘Oh, that’s not going to be good’.”
Matthew Hayden
Matthew played cricket with MS for Chennai in the IPL. They were teammates for 3 seasons. Chennai won their first IPL title in 2010. Matthew was on the team when they got their first trophy.
Matthew Hayden admits Harbhajan Singh’s trap was too hard to resist in on-field battle
Matthew Hayden said he found it difficult to counter former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. He said that when the two first met, Harbhajan believed he could dismiss him on every ball.
Even while the seasoned spinner did exhibit some deference in his latter years, Hayden said, he would still manage to connect with him. He declared:
“There were two parts of Harvey. There was Harvey that thought he could get me out every ball, and Harvey that finally gave me some respect and basically just kept me out of play, and that Harvey was really hard for me to play because I always wanted to come at him and I’d fall into the trap pretty much nine times out of 10.”
Matthew Hayden
Hayden also discussed his experiences winning ODI World Cups with Australia and becoming IPL winners with CSK.
“They are so different. A World Cup is such a monumental moment. Clearly, I was privileged to play two of them. The IPL was something that I feel real happy about playing in. It was at a time after the Monkeygate where both nations were struggling, there was power struggle as well on and off the field. So, the IPL was sensational. 2010 IPL is something that I will never forget. Winning down here in Mumbai was magic.”
Matthew Hayden
In 2009, Matthew Hayden declared his retirement from international cricket. He ended with a total of 15,064 runs across all forms. The southpaw still has the greatest individual Test score (380) by an Australian hitter.