Simply the best

Matthew Hayden: not for him the Fancy Dan image or manufactured sound-bite © Getty Images

Adam Gilchrist is easier on the eye than perhaps any other batsman in recent memory, while Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting possess a greater array of strokes. Rahul Dravid has a more pleasing technique, and the upright elegance of Michael Vaughan has its admirers, as does Inzamam-ul-Haq's power and finesse. And there's there Brian Lara, the genius who raises his game for the big occasion, whether that be a tussle against Muttiah Muralitharan or a joust against the Aussies. But if statistics are a guide to separating the wheat from the chaff - and they do a fair job of that in cricket - then Hayden is a country mile ahead of everyone else.

Starting with that breakthrough series in India in 2001 - where he made 549 runs without ever being troubled - Hayden has made 3000 runs - Perth epic excluded - from 31 Tests, at a staggering average of 65.22. No one else has managed even 2500 runs - Tendulkar is next in line with 2395, marginally ahead of Ponting (2381), Vaughan (2316), Dravid (2292) and Lara (2271). The next best average among those with over 2000 runs is Lara's 63.08, from ten fewer matches.

More importantly, Hayden dominates the opposition in a manner not seen since Sir Donald Bradman's heyday. He has 13 centuries - and 9 fifties - from those 31 matches, comfortably clear of Ponting (10 from 30) and Tendulkar (7 from 26). In his second avatar, he has scored 50 or more almost every other innings - not quite Bradmanesque, but significantly more impressive than his more celebrated peers.

No statistics can reveal however the bravery and strength that went into one of the defining innings of our age, his 119 against Pakistan - who replied with 53 and 59 - in oven-like conditions in Sharjah last year. In 50 degrees Celsius temperatures where bowlers and batsmen alike wilted, Hayden batted for over seven hours - even finding the time to bait Shoaib Akhtar when he wasn't creaming him past point or midwicket. It was the sort of innings that no one else could have played, one man's Herculean strength and bloody-mindedness coming together to script cricket's version of The Triumph of the Will.

Had he been a will-o-wipsy shotmaker like David Gower, Hayden might have been acknowledged as the finest around, and elicited the sort of paeans usually devoted to Tendulkar, Lara, Vaughan and company. Instead, he is the quintessential Aussie, a follower of the hard yakka tradition who's fond of a beer, his fly-fishing rod and surfboard - not for him the Fancy Dan image or manufactured sound-bite.

When we chatted during the ICC Knockout Trophy in Colombo last year, I asked him to make sense of the tremendously rich vein of form that he had been able to mine. His answer was revealing. "Hitting the cricket ball well is sort of addictive," he said, flexing the tendons on those massive forearms. Today, he took that addiction to unprecedented levels, and it wasn't just the crowd at the WACA that were transported to an unforgettable high.