'It was just sensational': Hayden picks this knock as his favourite by Tendulkar, claims he played Warne ‘on his flute’

Australian batting icon Matthew Hayden picked the iconic 241 in Sydney during India's 2003-04 tour of Australia as his favourite innings by Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian legend who is widely considered one of the greatest to have ever played the game.

Tendulkar had struck what was his highest Test score at the time during the fourth and final Test against the Steve Waugh-led Australian team in January 2004. And what stood out during his extraordinary knock at the Sydney Cricket Ground was his refusal to play the cover drive - a shot that had got him dismissed multiple times earlier in the tour.

The innings was arguably was the finest example not just of Tendulkar's sheer genius but also of his unwavering discipline.

"Favourite innings of Sachin was in the Sydney Test match when he got 200, and he just refused to play a cover drive. Talking about adaptability, when you think about this last series against England, he just went, ‘You blokes are getting me caught in slips and gully, and I’m not playing a shot there'," Hayden said on the Willow Talk Cricket Podcast recently.

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"So he just batted through the day – through the days, plural. It was just sensational," he added.

'He just played Shane Warne on his flute'

'Haydos' – a batting icon himself who scored more than 15,000 runs for Australia including 8,625 in the Test format in 103 appearances – further described Tendulkar as someone whose bat resembled a "barn bloody door" and who could take the "piss out of spin", even against someone as legendary as Shane Warne.

"It always surprised me also just what a little pocket rocket he was. When you go into the change rooms and pick up his bat, there’s no way even as a big unit that I could use his bats. They were so heavy and so thick. It was like this generation’s bats," Tendulkar continued.

"And just how effortless and how beautiful his timing was. When you look at modern players versus someone like Sachin, you just think nothing could go wrong. His bat looked like a barn bloody door. He was just so damn good.

"And he just took the piss out of spin. Him and Warnie were great mates, and you can see why, because he just played Shane Warne – the king of our era, maybe the best cricketer ever – on his flute. He’d rip out his flute and just go bang," the former left-handed opener added.