Opening batting specials

Matthew Hayden's reputation is as tough as his favourite chopping board. Scyld Berry, the perceptive English writer, noted before the previous Ashes tour Hayden "opens the batting and the sledging" and his hulking size and forceful approach has caused many bowlers - and fielders - to feel like breaking down.

So it was strange to watch Hayden become overwhelmed and a little teary at the launch of his second eponymous cookbook. He had just started to thank his wife and two children when his eyes reddened and his words stopped. "Whenever I talk about my family I can't breathe," he says. "So I better move on."

In the audience Noela Wilson, whose chicken pie recipe appeared in the first collection, shouted "don't worry, Matt, real men do cry". It was an example of Hayden's contradictions. A strong man on the field, he's a muscular Christian, cuddly daddy and dedicated chef off it.

Like his batting, Hayden has tunnel vision in the kitchen. While he swirled the ingredients for a pad thai, he was supposed to be commentating for the audience of about 100. Jamie Oliver's television shows aren't in danger yet as the apron-less host's speech again struggled to emerge with the smells of the dish, but the food was produced quickly and with complementary spicy, sweet and prawn flavours.

The bondas - fried balls of mashed potato, chick pea flour and chillis - were popular with the prawn rice rolls as nibbles and Hayden also helped pre-prepare salmon quiche and melting moments. Michael Kasprowicz, Hayden's long-time Queensland team-mate, reckoned it was the first time he had cooked for him.

Hayden's batting approach might not be subtle, but his cooking touch is delicate and his variety impressive. "I'm really happy with this cookbook," he says. "I really enjoyed the first book and this one is more about the outside, fishing, friends and family. This is a great passion for me and the book is full of things I love doing. Skating with the kids, surfing in South Africa, being in India, playing games in the dressing room. It's my life."

Having tested Hayden's recipes, it doesn't take much longer to boil an egg (too simple to be included in either book) than to realise the publication is not just a gimmick. While Glenn McGrath produced a sponsor-dominated advertisement for barbecues and sauces before last Christmas, Hayden has searched for his ingredients and found tips and tastes from the Scottish highlands to New Zealand, where he baked pizzas for the one-day team in a takeaway van.

The well-presented recipes fill about half the book - he says the best meal is the wok-fried snapper - and the rest of the text is taken up with stories of how he discovered them and tales of cricket, friends and family. Filling a lifestyle-biographical genre, he covers the game, surfing, India on a houseboat, making lemonade scones for the doctor who diagnosed his pneumonia and his personal outlook. "On my surfboard it says 'Endless Progression'," he writes. "I try to apply this philosophy to everything I do."

Hayden also gives insights into the mouths and stomachs of the Australian team. Ricky Ponting is a roast pork man, Adam Gilchrist likes penne arrabbiata, Shane Watson eats anything and Stuart MacGill's palette enjoys grass-fed Riverina beef fillet with truffled mash. And his opening partner Justin Langer? "The boys reckon that Alfie is such a 'brown nose' that he'd say his favourite food is anything that I cook."

On their last night in England after the 2005 Ashes loss Hayden and Damien Martyn were heading out for dinner when they were told Ricky Ponting had booked them a ride in a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a table at one of London's swankiest restaurants. Both players' Test spots were in danger and it reads like a moving thank you from their captain. At the Japanese eatery Ainsley Harriott, the host of Ready Steady Cook, was the pair's first celebrity spot before most of the jubilant England team entered after their triumphant Trafalgar Square parade.

Hayden says he shouted a beer for Matthew Hoggard and Michael Vaughan, who was involved in regular verbal exchanges with Hayden during the series. "In the heat of battle no one likes to get too close to their opposition," he says. "It's certainly hard for me to think someone is a great bloke and then have to go out the next day and belt his self-esteem and ego to billy-o! On that night we couldn't avoid facing up to our loss, with the England team celebrating right before our eyes." It didn't make him cry.