Former Australia batsman Matthew Hayden recalled an interesting anecdote from his time in the Indian Premier League back in 2010 when Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni asked him not to use the mongoose bat.
Hayden garnered a lot of attention for his unusual mongoose bat, which had a longer handle and smaller blade, in the second edition of the T20 league. The former CSK player made an instant impact with it when he smacked 93 off 43 deliveries, starring in a victory against the then Delhi Daredevils.
Though Hayden used the bat frequently during that IPL season, the 48-year-old revealed that Dhoni wasn’t fond of it at first.
“I remember Dhoni telling me, ‘I’ll give you anything that you want in life, for not to use this bat. Please do not use this bat’,” Hayden said during a chat on CSK’s Twitter handle.
In response, Hayden said to Dhoni: “Mate, I have been using this bat for practice for about a year and a half and when it hits the middle of the bat it goes 20 metres further.”
Hayden said he was convinced that the shape of the bat wouldn’t impact his performance.
“I used it extensively in the trial. I wasn’t just going to put my franchise at risk and have bad performances. I had done my homework on this product. I was ready to use it,” he said.
The Australian felt that cricket needs more innovative products at present.
He said: “For me, cricket should have more products. In cricket, there’s not a lot of innovation and when there is, you hear these arguments that ‘oh, the bat’s too big’. It is tiring to see the same product being rolled out.”
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