Top 10 Australian batsmen of all time

5 Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden

After his first stint with the Australian team back in 1994 proved to be a disappointing one, no one really gave Matthew Hayden when he returned to the Test team in the form of an opener in 2000.

Despite the odds, he proved everybody wrong, and became one of the most fearsome opening batsmen in Test and one-day international cricket over the next eight or nine years.

Hayden was an ultra-aggressive opener who preferred to dominate the bowlers right from the start, but on the other hand, he also had a solid defensive technique that allowed him to mount a rearguard if the situation demanded so.

That being said, it was the mix of technical excellence and brutal stroke play that made him one of the most dangerous batsmen of his generation.

He scored 30 centuries in 103 Tests and scored 8625 runs at an average of 50.73 and a strike rate of over 60. Hayden briefly held the record for the highest individual score in Test cricket, when he scored 380 against Zimbabwe in the Perth Test in October 2003.

In one-day internationals, he played 161 games and scored 6133 runs at an averaged of 43.80. Hayden was the member of one of the most successful Australian teams ever, and was the opening batsman in two consecutive World Cup triumphs.