- Made his international cricket debut in an Ashes test at Manchester in 1993.
- Retired from international cricket after the Second Test against South Africa in January 2009.
- Scored more than a thousand test runs in a single calendar year for five consecutive seasons from 2001-05.
- Most successful batsman of the 2007 World Cup with 659 runs.
- Formed a highly potent test batting opening pair with Justin Langer. The duo made 5654 runs while batting together, with an average of 51.88 runs per partnership.
- Broke Brian Lara's record of the highest individual test innings of 375 scoring 380 against Zimbabwe at Perth in late 2003. However, the feat lasted only 186 days as during England's tour of the West Indies in 2004, Lara scored an unbeaten 400 at Antigua to reclaim his world record. Hayden's accomplishment therefore remains the shortest lived world record in tests.
- Wisden Cricketer of the Year, 2003.
- Represented the Indian Premier League franchise Chennai Super Kings from 2008 till 2010.
- Swam a kilometer to safety when his fishing boat capsized in 1995. Hayden thereafter became active in promoting marine safety awareness.
- His remarks over the controversial 2007 Border-Gavaskar Trophy test at Sydney in which he called India a "third world country" and invited India's pace sphere head Ishant Sharma "for an open boxing bout" caused an uproar across the Indian subcontinent. Whilst ordered by Cricket Australia to immediately apologize, Hayden refused and defended his statement.
- In his spare time, Hayden is a keen cook and occasionally prepared meals for his teammates while on tour. A collection of his recipes was published in Australia in 2004 as THE MATTHEW HAYDEN COOKBOOK. A second book, THE MATTHEW HAYDEN COOKBOOK 2, was published in 2006.
- Fourth most prolific test batsman and the most successful opening batsman for the decade of 2000s, behind fellow Australian Ricky Ponting, South Africa's Jacques Kallis and India's Rahul Dravid. He accumulated 8364 runs in 96 tests played during the decade averaging over 52. His 29 centuries are also the second highest behind only Ponting's 32.
- Unlike most of his countrymen, Hayden refused to consider Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan as a chucker, stating that Murali's action was cleared only after biomechanical analysis, that too in Australian institutes.
- Regards fellow Australian Dennis Lillee, Pakistan's Wasim Akram and West Indies' Sir Curtly Ambrose as three of his favourite fast bowlers.
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