Well, to be fair to Hayden, he only played 6 of his 103 tests under Taylor's captaincy and didn't cement his position in the test team until 2000 (near the beginning of S Waugh's captaincy)
The same reason Michael Clarke won the 2005 AB Medal, even though Damien Martyn was by far the best batsman the previous calendar year and one of the main reasons we won in India
Oh, what a huge fall from grace the Allan Border Medal has taken, especially from the early years when it was hosted by Eddie McGuire, went for about 3 hours and received huge publicity in the media.
Still maintain the first one in 2000 was the best. They pretty much analysed every test and ODI Australia played, nearly every test captain was in attendance. The live comedy sketch involving Tony Greig and Bill Lawry still stands out.
Hayden would definitely praise Steve Waugh. It was Steve who convinced Hayden to be patient and keep scoring runs in Sheild after he had two good seasons with QLD scoring over 1000 runs.
I could be wrong but he wanted him instead of Elliott to be opener after Taylor retired.
He did play under Taylor when he scored his first ton in 1997 against the Windies but came into the side after Elliott got injured in that series. Once Elliott came back as a No. 3 batsman, Hayden's form wasn't great so they dropped him again.
He came back again for Australia in 2000 after replacing Blewett. I remember the Windies series in 2000/01, he didn't score a hundred but made a few 50s but was still under pressure to keep his spot when they toured India.
Since that Indian series in 2001 he never looked back and then got even better when Langer partnered him.
I remember in 2005, Martyn was a shoe in for the Allan Border medal after he had a great calendar year in tests and still did quite well in ODI's. I was shocked when Clarke won it.
Those early days of the AB Medal were good when they had that voting system similar to the Dally Ms/Brownlow Medal, I think the 2001 Medal night was interesting when they did the countdown for the test player. All 3 players, S Waugh, Slater and Miller were equal points, then they did a countback on number of wickets, runs and catches. Miller surprisingly knocked all 3 of them out but was quite funny seeing him with the blue hair accepting the test player of the year.
But as for Eddie as host. Meh. Couldn't care less. These days he would flog AFL all the time.
However I liked the bit where they introduced all test captains, past and present and alive. It was good to acknowledge those past players.
