The career of the most improved player in world cricket took another upward turn at the Waca when Matthew Hayden re-wrote scoring records with a staggering innings against Zimbabwe.
 | SETTING THE STANDARD Tests: 45 Runs: 3,917 Average: 56.8 100s: 11; 50s: 15 Highest score: 380, v Zimbabwe in Perth 2003 |
All batsmen aspire to centuries, wish for double tons and dream of triples, though few contemplate the prospect of making the highest Test score of all time.
But Hayden's meteor has been rising so fast over the last 30 months it should come as little surprise that if anybody was going to break Brian Lara's benchmark, it was going to be him.
To label Hayden an improved cricketer, however, does no justice to the impact he has made on the game since he travelled to India in 2001 a borderline selection and returned home a star.
Australia famously lost that series but through no fault of Hayden, who after years as a heavy scorer for the Queensland state team finally transferred his talents to the world stage.
The series - in which he scored 549 runs in three Tests - was such a defining time for Hayden that it is convenient to view him as having two careers, one pre-2001 and one after.
In his first seven years as an Australia cricketer, Hayden popped in and out of the team and managed just 13 Test appearances, averaging 24.
Since then, Hayden's run-scoring has been not far short of Bradman-esque. He has featured in each of Australia's 32 Tests, scoring 3,381 runs at a stunning average of 72.
The second-highest run-scorer in the team in that period, Ricky Ponting, is nearly 1,000 runs behind. In a team that is a beacon to the rest of the world, Hayden is one of the brightest stars.
| THE QUIET ACHIEVER DID YOU KNOW? In 2001, Hayden scored 1,391 runs - replacing Bob Simpson as Australia's most prolific scorer at Test level in a single calendar year |
As for his taste for the big score, look no further than a conversion rate from fifties to centuries of 58%. Moreover, in nearly 400 first-class innings Hayden has been unbeaten one in 10 times, an outstanding figure for an opener.
But is it now right to venerate him as one of the greats, alongside the names that now appear below him on the all-time list of highest scores?
Detractors will look at Hayden's effort in Perth and say one swallow does not make a summer, that players like Bradman, Gary Sobers, Len Hutton and Brian Lara produced high scores over the course of years.
They will also point to the fact Hayden's epic innings came against the likes of Andy Blignaut, Ray Price and Trevor Gripper - hardly testing opposition by anybody's definition.
Then again, it is debateable Lara had much to beat when plundering Phil Tufnell, Chris Lewis and friends to his triple-century nine years ago against England.
And who is to say the Pakistan attack of 1958 was too good to be taken for 365 by Sir Gary Sobers, arguably the greatest all-rounder of them all?
The point is that a batsman can only score runs off the bowlers put in front of him, and in Hayden's case no attack has been spared lately.
A dedicated but modest cricketer, Hayden will be the last to say he deserves to be ranked alongside the game's all-time great batsmen.
But even now his record stands up to the closest inspection, and the scary thought for opposing teams is that he is showing no signs of letting up.
MMIX
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