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1 What makes 'Kulcha' special
"Leg spinners provide option and variety," said Hayden. "In particular, if you look at Kuldeep, his strength is not how far he turns the ball but his strength is how the ball arrives at the batsman, just like Warne's would. It has a distinct curve in the air." Chahal can, however, be negotiated, feels Hayden. "Chahal is a different bowler. He is very stump-to-stump. He bowls much flatter and straighter. He doesn't get the drift. If I was playing today, I would prefer facing Chahal because he doesn't get the drift," said Hayden.
2. Why off-spinners' declining in ODIs
"What has happened is that off-spinners have learnt the art to contain batsmen, which had kept them in play for a certain period of time. But now, the players have got used to the flatter trajectory of the off-spinners. Off-spinners have lost the art of being able to get the pace to drop [vary pace]," said Hayden. He then cited Nathan Lyon's approach in the second ODI in Nagpur, comparing the two spells from the off-spinner.
"During his second spell, the speed was like 80-82 kmph compared to 90-92 kmph in the first spell. So that's a clear drop of 10 kmph. All of a sudden, he looked unplayable." There is no doubt in Hayden's mind that the bowlers have to show guts to make a move like that in limited-overs cricket. "They have this courage issue where they don't want to give away runs. In Tests, they become wicket-takers compared to being run-savers. That's the difference," he said.
3. Happy at Australia's fightback
"The scoring options were much better from the third one-dayer compared to the first two. The first two were truly bowling wickets," he said. "We Australians, our hands by instincts go towards the on-side because we have bounce to work with on our home pitches. In India, there is not much bounce on offer and if you watch Virat Kohli's hands, they go straight through the ball while our players tend to come across the ball. It's difficult to get rid of this habit since we are so used to our conditions," he said.
4. Negating Kedar Jadhav
"He [Finch] made Jadhav bowl a different line. Someone like Jadhav can only be effective if he looks to bowl at stumps," observed Hayden, who feels that his famous ‘Mongoose bat' [customised with a long handle] would have been very effective to counter Jadhav's low-bounce deliveries "Well, the mongoose bat would have been very effective, especially on low and slow tracks like Feroz Shah Kotla, to counter Jadhav, who bowls with a low bounce," he said.
