Hayden no longer eating babies
Maybe he’s just doing it to confuse us, but Matthew Hayden has gone all nice in his retirement.
Firstly, he’s working to promote the development of cricket amongst Aborigines. A most admirable mission.
Secondly, he’s saying some charitable things about the state of New Zealand cricket. At least I think so. He at least attempts to blame the ICC for the state of things here. It’s just not entirely clear what he thinks of the state of things. He recognises that our international schedule has been disappointing, and we do play less matches than almost all the other teams. The problem he sees, however, seems to be that McCullum is not getting paid enough. Jeez, maybe it’s just the communist in me, but McCullum is the last Black Cap to need a top up to his salary.
But anyway, taking his comments at face value it is encouraging to hear these sentiments from outside NZ:
It’s pretty tough. I feel very sympathetic towards a country like New Zealand, which has some wonderful cricketers but they don’t get enough international opportunities.
