Let's hail Hayden the hero

Rahul Dravid will perhaps understand why this piece had to be hastily revised, the focus shifted from him and India to Matthew Hayden and Australia. A double hundred in Test cricket is a huge achievement, but a triple hundred is a rarity; and a world record is, well, a world record.
But perhaps there is a need to refocus, for though Hayden’s 380 came against Zimbabwe, there is actually a stiff lesson in it for India, who are scheduled to tour Australia later this year.This is what Messrs Ganguly and Co are going to be up against: a team with most of its players at the peak of their form, batsmen who believe in playing at full throttle, bowlers who seek wickets relentlessly, and a captain who believes that winning is everything.
In my reckoning, on current form Australia boast of the top three batsmen in the world - Hayden, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist. If Steve Waugh is reading this, he will undoubtedly try and force a reassessment by sheer weight of runs. That would make it the top four, with Hayden earning wide approval as numero uno though (after admitting to a strong bias) I would still plump for Gilchrist. Is there anybody who bats with more energy, unselfishness and flair?
Other batters in the side include Justin Langer, Damien Martyn and Darren Lehmann. The main bowlers today are Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie and if you add Glen McGrath and Shane Warne, you might have a roster of the top four bowlers in the world too. How does one beat this side?
While Ganguly and Co mull over this, let’s toast Hayden. There is no arithmetic progression from a hundred to a triple hundred: it is not thrice as difficult, more likely 30 times, for a batsman is subject to fatigue, loss of concentration, boredom et al. Making a triple hundred is like running the marathon in the hills, where the air is rare, as it were.
But Hayden hardly broke into a sweat, or lost his breath in his tour de force. He bears a distinct resemblance to the California’s new governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - the same ox-like torso, arms like tree-trunks and biceps bulging obscenely from the short-sleeved shirt. Hayden, of course, does not need doubles for his stunts.
The top three scores in test cricket now belong to left-handers - Hayden, Lara and Sobers, but that is misleading for in the 17 Test triple centuries, nine are by right-handers. Size and shape also don’t matter much: Hayden, Sobers, Hammond, Gooch and Inzamam for instance, are all six-footers; Lara, Bradman, Jayasuria, Edrich all short-statured.
What does matter is batting position. Only Inzamam and Bob Cowper have batted at number
four, the other 14 were all 1, 2 or 3. Time available in the middle is crucial. Equally important perhaps is the fact that the last two batsmen to make triple hundreds - Inzamam and Hayden - were both 30-ish. Improved fitness and financial rewards have increased the ambition of players. In some ways, that should be incentive for Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman - all 30-ish - to better Hayden when India tour Down Under. Breaking his record is not imperative. Beating Australia would do just fine.
And finally, an irresistible story, which I read somewhere, about a famous triple century. At the end of the second day of the Leeds Test in 1934, Australia were reeling at 39 for 3. The immortal Neville Cardus, with one eye always on the Big Story, went up to Don Bradman, who was not out, and invited him for dinner, who declined. "I’ve got to make 200 tomorrow - at least."
Cardus reminded the Don that he had made 300-plus in his last innings at Leeds and that, "The law of averages is against you getting anywhere near 200 again."
Bradman replied firmly, "I don’t believe in the law of averages."
He went on to score 304, the only man to have made two triple hundreds in the history of the game.