Former Indian spinner and commentator Harbhajan Singh recalled how former Australian opener Matthew Hayden scored a lot of runs and helped his team win the Wankhede Test in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2001.
Speaking on the ‘Midwicket Stories’, Bhajji strolled down memory lane to the Wankhede Test in 2001, when Hayden single-handedly won the game for Australia. Notably, the opening batter scored 119 runs in the first innings.
“Before we came to that game in Kolkata, a lot had happened in Mumbai, where he lost in the first three days. Hayden scored a brilliant hundred. They were at 90/4, and we believed that we had the game in our hands. Hayden was playing quietly till the end, only defending. Suddenly Gilchrist came, and I don’t know what he whispered in his ear and from there onwards Hayden did not stop sweeping. He did not stop. We managed to put the brakes on Gilchrist, and Hayden single-handedly won that game,” Harbhajan Singh said on ‘Midwicket Stories’.
However, India made a strong comeback in the second Test at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Harbhajan played a pivotal role in India’s 171-run win to level the series as the off-spinner scalped 13 wickets in that fixture. He went on to state that the Kolkata fixture gave him the name.
“In Kolkata, Hayden was batting differently again. Close to tea, he was on 97, the only man outside at cow corner was Hemang Badani. He was looking to hit me for a six, and the ball went straight to Badani’s hand. The moment he got out, things started to change. For us, it was a big comeback in the series. That changed my game as well. It gave me the name. Hardly anyone was talking about me as a bowler before that game. That was the series that changed everything,” Harbhajan added.
“On day three, when the score was on 115, Sachin played an expansive cover drive, and he nicked off. On the way to the ground that way, Michael Slater had a full box of cigars and he said we would be climbing in onto this after a series win today. We hadn’t won the Test yet. We did not take a wicket for the whole day. It was extraordinary. Dravid’s 150 and Laxman’s 250 was something special,” he recalled.
