Player profile: If Brad ‘Haddin’ been there

KARACHI: The 37-year-old wicketkeeper batsman, Brad Haddin, may not make it into the list of the most talented batsmen in the history of the game but few will deny that after the departure of Adam Gilchrist, had he not been there, Australia would have been in deep water.

Overshadowed for most of his career by the brilliance of Gilchrist, Haddin had to wait in line till he was on the wrong side of 30 to play his first Test against the West Indies at Kingston in 2008. His ODI debut, however, came as early as 2001 against Zimbabwe at the Hobart, but he could only manage 13 runs. He scored his first fifty in his 16th ODI against the West Indies in Kuala Lumpur in 2006 — five years after his debut — and had to wait another three years, to score his maiden century in the third match of the 2009 Chappell-Hadlee Trophy against New Zealand.

Australia had lost the opening two matches, with Haddin coming in at seven and three — scoring 31 and 12 respectively — before he was sent in as an opener in the third. The wicketkeeper delivered; scoring 109 to guide Australia to 301 and help the Kangaroos win by 32 runs. Another vital knock of 43 in the next match helped Australia draw level.

He scored yet another century in the same tournament next year, scoring 110 as an opener, but with Australia spoilt for choice up the order, he often had to make do with the role of the pinch hitter at number seven, where he averages 26.38 and has scored only three fifties.

There is little doubt about what Haddin’s best position is; both his centuries and 10 of his 16 half-centuries have come as an opener in the 47 ODIs that he has played at the top but, always the team player, Haddin is more than happy to sacrifice his own record for the betterment of the team.

In 2012, tragedy threatened to cut short a career that had once promised so much as Haddin had to leave the West Indies tour after his one-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. Mathew Wade was called in as a replacement and it seemed like the final chapter of Haddin’s story. But the man from New South Wales did not give up and worked hard to earn his place back. A good domestic performance helped him make a comeback in the 2013 Ashes tour, which Australia lost 3-0.

And it was in the 2013-14 Ashes series that Haddin displayed his class as Australia whitewashed England to reaffirm their cricketing stature. A 94-run knock in the first innings of the first Test was followed by a 53-run knock in the second innings. He then scored 118 in the first innings of the second Test and hit fifties in all the first innings of the remaining three Tests to stamp his authority on the number seven position in the Kangaroos’ Test side.

But Haddin has often proven himself to be a man for the big occasion. He averages 31.44 in 117 ODIs at a strike rate of 82.65, but in the seven World Cup matches that he has played — during Australia’s 2011 campaign — he boasts an average of 55.33 at a strike rate of 78.85, scoring four half-centuries against New Zealand, Kenya, Canada and India in the seven matches.

With the 2015 World Cup just around the corner, Australia will be looking to add a fifth title to their burgeoning trophy cabinet and Haddin will be hoping to make his last World Cup one to remember.
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