By IANS,
Sydney : Matthew Hayden has dismissed immediate retirement plans from one-day cricket. The veteran opener who will turn 37 next month, says he is far from being a spent force and wants to remain part of Australia’s one-day set-up as long as he keeps performing.
“The big thing is I haven’t lost my passion for one-day cricket and while I’m performing there, I’ll keep playing,” Hayden was quoted as saying in Herald Sun.
“The significant part of my decision is whether Matthew Hayden is affecting the team negatively in the run to the World Cup? I don’t see that being a consideration. I’m as motivated now as I’ve ever been. That’s really driving my insatiable appetite for runs.”
The veteran batsman’s tenure in the national one-day side has come under scanner with Shaun Marsh and Shane Watson emerging as the potential opening pair in the run to the 2011 World Cup.
But Hayden has his imperious form to back his case. He has failed just once in his past 28 one-day innings — a block which includes four hundreds and seven half-centuries – and he is the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) one-day player of the year.
Australian coach Tim Nielsen said the national selectors planned to sit down with Hayden to gauge his plans.
“The selectors will sit down with him and work out where he’s moving over the next 12 months and how he’d like to go about that,” Nielsen said.
Hayden, who averages 43.81 from 161 one-dayers, said his advancing years had not eroded his batting.
“Everyone is kind of expecting me to fall over and to be honest I don’t feel like that at all. I feel I’m hitting the ball as well as I ever have. I’ll know when the time is right to walk away.”