“Any time I have been asked to do anything I’ve always said yes at any time of day.”

He said he would “definitely not” charge Cricket Australia for his time but wanted the governing body to give current players access to the previous generation.

He pointed out India batter Shreyas Iyer’s close relationship with Ricky Ponting during their time together at IPL franchise Delhi Capitals, and Matthew Mott’s role in England’s Twenty20 World Cup triumph to highlight how other countries are using the best of Australia’s coaching talent.

“You can’t alienate them,” Hayden said. “If you want the creme de la creme, the very least you can do is respect them. There should be a system if you’re in the CA role, how do we get the intellectual property in our players? That’s the key.”

He recalled a pitch he made during his playing days to former cricket legend Richie Benaud for him to speak to the team.

“You’d run into Richie Benaud on the plane, and you’d say ‘you’d love to have him in the change rooms. I know you like to drink a nice glass of burgundy, I’ll get that in, we’ll do this, we’ll do that,’” Hayden said.

“You can ask, it’s the same principle. Ask, and we did. Even though that didn’t happen it doesn’t take much to develop relationships.”

Hayden said he sympathised with coach Andrew McDonald’s task, as teams no longer have the time for extensive preparation for tours. McDonald has stood by the side’s lead-in.

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“It’s not possible because a week before we came over here everyone was screaming bloody murder about their superstars not playing the Big Bash League – and yet they’ve got a Test match nine days later,” Hayden said.

“This is where I really don’t envy the role of Andrew McDonald. He has to work out what is the priority in terms of his playing group of which he has zero per cent control over a two-month period because of IPL.

“Part of that tenure would be, ‘what do we want to win fellas?’ Because if it’s India we know what it takes to win there.”

McDonald has said he would be open to Hayden coming into the fold if players wanted to use him on top of their existing coaching staff.

“If Matthew can add value to individual players, I’m sure those individual players would definitely engage in a conversation with him,” McDonald said.

McDonald, though, could not resist a cheeky backhander to Hayden for his criticism of the team’s overuse of the sweep shot. Hayden had used a broom in a Star Sports segment to colourfully make the point.

“Did he succeed sweeping as well?” McDonald said. “Just throwing the question out there as well.”

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