Former Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden is not pleased that India's batting superstar Sachin Tendulkar is going to receive an Order of Australia Medal.
Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard said that Tendulkar deserved the “special honour” because he was a “very special cricketer”.
“Cricket is of course a great bond between Australia and India. We are both cricket-mad nations,” she said.
“I am very pleased that we are going to confer on Sachin Tendulkar the membership of the Order of Australia.
“This is a very special honour very rarely awarded to someone who is not an Australian citizen or an Australian national.”
However, Hayden believes the honour should only be bestowed upon Australians.
"The reality of it is he's living in India. I can kind of get their point, but for me I think it should be exclusive to Australians," Hayden told Triple M's Rush Hour show.
The former cricketer also blasted England's James Anderson, saying that he was a "B-grade" bowler.
"In reality James Anderson was a B-grade bowler that got his arse whipped by Australia that many times it's not even funny," Hayden said.
His remarks were in response to an incident described in Anderson's autobiography in which the fast bowler said he had hit Michael Clarke with a batsman's pad, encouraged by Damien Martyn.
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