14 January,2009 09:05 AM IST | | Khalid A-H Ansari
Australian Test icon Matthew Hayden yesterday revealed he made his emotional decision to retire when he had his six-year old daughter Grace by his side in his backyard tomato patch.
"I was picking this crazy bush of wild tomatoes that we had and I was with Grace at the time," Hayden said, holding back tears.
"I was just talking with her and I just said: 'Darling, I've had enough I want to be here.'
"She said: 'Daddy, one more Christmas because she loves the Boxing Day Test match (in Melbourne).
"I said: "'No, that's it love, this is time.'
"I guess there are times you just know. There were times when it wasn't an easy decision. I wanted to step out of the bubble of international cricket. There were a lot of moments where I was tossing and turning what I wanted to do," Hayden said.
The soft side of the personality of one of the most dreaded destroyers of bowlers the game has seen, surfaced when he faced the media at his beloved Gabba Oval to announce his retirement on Tuesday with his national squad team-mates lined along the back of the room and wife Kellie standing alongside with daughter Grace and sons Thomas and Joshua alongside.
Choking back tears, as words seemed to fail him, Hayden said: "Geezu00a0... that's not a great start."
The great opening batsman pulled up short as he read from a prepared statement.
"Get up," he said to skipper Ricky Ponting at his side. "Just need a little mid-wicket conversation here."
The arrival on the stage of one-year old son Thomas with yells of "Daddy, Daddy" came to Hayden's rescue, his mood changing from sadness to unconcealed joy.
"I have no fear for life without cricket and I say that with all due respect to the wonderful opportunity I have had as an Australian and a Queensland player," Hayden said.
"I can say that because I know, rightly or wrongly I have tried to extract every ounce of whatever I have been given and transfer that into performance.
"This is point I want to step off. I am just so proud of what I have achieved.
"To play one Test for your country is enormous and I feel privileged to have had the longevity in the side I have had.
"I hope that in some small way I have left a legacy into the culture of the Australian team.
"I have lived a dream. I have been part of one of the iconic eras of Australian cricket.
"It's been great. I've loved every minute of it."
As tributes to the scourge of fast bowlers the world over poured in, his captain Ricky Ponting said "life without Haydos is hard to imagine."
In his syndicated column this morning, Ponting writes: "The team will miss him tremendously, not just for the run-scoring and everything he has been to the team, for such a long time, but for how genuine a bloke he's been and how hard-working he's been and how he has set such a great example to the young players who come into the change room.
"Haydos is a man who has extracted every last little bit of his ability.
"He said yesterday he had been at the crossroads six or seven times in his career and each time he had to go away and reinvent himself. For someone to do that so often just goes to show what sort of person he is.
"He did the same in India in 2001," Ponting writes. "For a bloke from the Gabba to do what he did in those conditions was something else."
"I remember he had set up a worn pitch at the Allan Border field to get himself right for that tour and that was when he announced himself as a great of Australian cricket.
"Australian cricket is going to miss Matthew Hayden and it is hard for me to get used to the idea that he hasn't just gone to reinvent himself before coming back to dominate another series."
