Mr TONY SMITH (7:30 PM) —I want to congratulate the Queensland Sheffield Shield side on their impressive win in the Mercantile Mutual Cup. At the same time, I want to reflect on a couple of players. Firstly, I want to mention Geoff Foley from my own electorate. He played a very important part in the one-day games and has done so in all of them.

Secondly, I particularly want to reflect on Matthew Hayden. I do so because I have watched Matthew Hayden since he entered cricket in, I think, 1990-91, and his has been a very sad career. In my view, that career has occurred because in many respects he has never been given a fair go.

My father was a very keen cricketer. I also played, but never to the level that he did or to the level of the Minister for Defence (Mr McLachlan), now at the table. When I first started watching cricket, I recall seeing in the 1960-61 famous series against the West Indies probably the greatest left hand batsman ever. That was Garfield Sobers. He was and remains the best left hand batsman I have ever seen, and probably the best all-rounder who has ever played the game of cricket.

When I first saw Matthew Hayden playing cricket, he reminded me more than any other player of Garfield Sobers. When Hayden came in he was a dashing left hand batsman. He hit anything. Sometimes it would be barely short of a length or maybe on a good length, but he would hit it and hit it hard. His style was impressive to watch. He was the sort of cricketer who brought people to the game, and I have many followers of cricket in my electorate, particularly people in the Pine Rivers Cricket Club, who are very keen cricketers and have provided a nursery for many cricketers.

But to see Matthew Hayden last weekend was a total transformation. He was moving across outside the off stump when he need not do so. Ultimately, he was out LBW for a very low score. Why has that happened? While I do not want to pose as an expert on cricket, I believe it is capable of being traced back to the fact that he was never given a fair go. In his first season for Queensland, he scored more than 1,000 runs. He scored century after century but, when an Australian side was picked, an unknown from Victoria called Wayne Phillips was made the opening batsman. Wayne Phillips played one or two tests and has never been seen or heard of again.

Matthew Hayden, who was a great cricketer who should have been playing for Australia right from the beginning, had his confidence eroded from that time onwards. And cricket is about confidence: it is about knowing that you can do the job. Given the treatment that was meted out to him, I do not believe that he has ever been the same cricketer since then.

What often happens in sport is that when somebody sees you in that situation they say, `You didn't make the team, but you should change your style. You shouldn't go for everything outside the off stump.' The man had made 1,300 or 1,400 runs in his first season of cricket, but somebody was saying to him, `Your style is a little bit different to that of other people.' But if you compared his style to that of the West Indian batsmen, who have a go at everything, whether it be short of a length, pitched up or on a good length, you would see that that was the sort of style he had. That style of cricket is also what brings Australians into cricket grounds and is the sort of cricket we love and delight in, coming from West Indians in particular.

But it was that sort of style that caused somebody to grab hold of him and say, `That's really not good enough. You've got to tighten up a bit. Don't try to flick anything off your legs, you'll get caught'—all those sorts of things. Ultimately, I believe all of those things—his ability combined with a very biased selection process which favoured New South Wales and certainly favoured Mark Taylor, who was constantly picked ahead of Matthew Hayden, despite the fact that he was out of form constantly—have left an indelible mark on him.

I hope he can come out of it. I think he is a great cricketer. He is a credit to the sport. He has never said a word or complained that he has never had a fair deal. I do not think he has had a fair deal, but I do not think he has ever complained. I think he is a credit and an ornament to the game. I hope he comes back bigger and better than ever next year, with his style back in shape. I really wish him well, and I wish the Queenslanders well in their quest for the Sheffield Shield.