page_title: Matthew Hayden
section_title: Test career
hierarchical_section_title: Matthew Hayden / International career / Test career
caption_attribution_description: English: This is the complete graphical representation of the test cricket record of Matthew Hayden. Individual innings are represented by the blue and red (not out) bars; the green line is his career batting average. Current as of 8 January 2019.
context_page_description: Matthew Lawrence Hayden AM is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer. His career spanned fifteen years. Hayden was a powerful and aggressive left-handed opening batsman, known for his ability to score quickly at both Test and one day levels.
  Hayden holds the record for the highest score made by an Australian batsman in Tests. This is also the record for the highest individual test score by an opening batsman in Tests. His innings of 201 against India in Chennai remains the 2nd highest score by an Australian in India. He formed one of the most prolific opening partnerships in world Test cricket for Australia with Justin Langer, and in ODI cricket with Adam Gilchrist. Upon his retirement, in January 2009, Hayden's Test average was 50.7; he had scored the second most runs in Test cricket by an opening batsman; and was equal 6th on the all-time list for Test centuries.
  Hayden retired from all forms of cricket in September 2012.
  In 2017, Hayden was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.
context_section_description: Hayden and Michael Slater were both picked for the 1993 tour of England, but Slater performed better in the tour games, and secured the opening position alongside vice-captain Mark Taylor for the next few years. Hayden played a single test in the 4–8 March 1994 Test Match against South Africa in Johannesburg, scoring 15 and 5, filling in for an injured Taylor.
  His next Test selection was in the 1996–97 season, with three tests each against the West Indies and South Africa. He made his maiden century (125 against the West Indies in Adelaide), but averaged only 24.1 over the six tests, including four ducks. He was dropped from the team, as the selectors favoured other openers, initially Taylor and Matthew Elliott, then later Slater and Greg Blewett, for the next few years. At the time, he was compared occasionally to Graeme Hick, a fine domestic performer but not quite good enough to make it at the highest level.
  During these years, Hayden was a prolific batsman for the Queensland first-class cricket team. Weight of domestic cricket runs, and persistence, resulted in a resurrection of his international career for the 1999–2000 tour of New Zealand and the following 2000-01 summer against the West Indies. His results in those series were unconvincing, but he was still picked for the 2001 tour of India.
  On that tour of India, Hayden scored 549 runs, an Australian record for a three-Test series, at an average of 109.80. Before the 2001 India tour, Hayden averaged 24.36 from 13 Tests, with one century. After that, he was an automatic selection for the Test side. He scored over 1,000 Test runs in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, the first man to achieve the feat five times. He was selected as one of Wisden's five 2003 Cricketers of the Year.
  In the first innings of the First Test against Zimbabwe on 10 October 2003 at the WACA, Hayden scored 380 runs from only 437 balls to set a new world record for an individual Test innings, passing the previous record of Brian Lara (375), set in April 1994. Hayden's total remained the record until 12 April 2004, when Lara scored 400 not out. As of May 2020, it remains the second-highest innings in Test history, and is the highest ever by an Australian. For his performances in 2004, he was named in the World Test XI by ICC.
  Hayden suffered a considerable form-slump towards the end of 2004, and went for sixteen consecutive tests without scoring a century. This continued into the highly anticipated 2005 Ashes, where Hayden failed to reach 40 in any of the first four tests, which put pressure on his position in the team; a hard-fought 138 from 303 balls in the Fifth Test at The Oval arguably saved his career. This signalled a return to form for Hayden for the 2005/06 season, and he scored centuries in four consecutive Tests, including the Oval Test, then home Tests against the ICC World XI and West Indies.
  Hayden's form in the 2006-07 Ashes series against England was average; he failed to reach 40 in the first three innings of the series, but again returned to form with scores of 92 in Perth, and 153 in the Boxing Day Test. For his performances in 2006, he was again named in the World Test XI by ICC.
  Hayden scored 30 centuries in his 103 tests. As of January 2019, this makes him one of only three Australians to have scored more test centuries than Don Bradman (29 centuries in 52 tests), the other two being Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh. He also scored 29 half-centuries in Tests. 
  In 2007-2008, Hayden became the third Australian, after Donald Bradman (four centuries in five Tests in 1947–48) and David Boon (three tons in five Tests in 1991–92) to register three or more hundreds in a Test series against India. For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World Test XI by ICC.
  Hayden has recorded three or more centuries in successive Tests three times: 2001–02 season, he registered four centuries in successive Tests against South Africa, at Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Johannesburg; during 2005–06 with centuries against England at The Oval in 2005, against a World XI at Sydney, and against 
caption: This is the complete graphical representation of the test cricket record of Matthew Hayden. Individual innings are represented by the blue and red (not out) bars; the green line is his career batting average. Current as of 8 January 2019.[21]
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