Meeting Dalai Lama a great moment in my life: Matthew Hayden

Former Australia and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batsman Matthew Hayden on Monday revealed the most special moment in his Indian Premier League (IPL) career.

He said that meeting Dalai Lama will always hold a special place in his heart and revealed as to when the meeting took place.

Hayden said that during the 2010 IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab, he got the opportunity to meet Dalai Lama.

The left-handed batsman shared a video on Twitter to talk about his favourite IPL memories and captioned the post as: "The @IPL has been a huge part of all our lives. Wanted to share my favourite #MyIPLmoment to fill the gap before live-action starts again. I would like to nominate @ImRaina to share his favourite IPL moment. Bless you, all".

"In 2010 I got the opportunity to meet Dalai Lama, it was a great moment in my life, I got the chance to meet someone so special, I still remember the match between CSK and Kings XI Punjab at Dharamsala, we needed more than 190 and we were under the pump," Hayden said in the video.

"It was then that MS Dhoni walked out to the middle and started to tee off from the start, he scored 54 off just 27 balls, Suresh Raina scored 46 runs, both of them had a strike rate of over than 150 and as a result, we entered the finals," he added.

With this win, CSK entered the finals, and in the summit clash the side faced off against Mumbai Indians.

CSK won the match by 22 runs to lift their first IPL title. Hayden also talked about how he took a crucial catch in the summit clash to hand CSK the win in the finals.

"My second best memory is when Mumbai Indians and CSK took on each other in the 2010 IPL finals. We all know that it is the real rivalry in IPL. My favourite moment was when Albie Morkel dismissed Kieron Pollard, MS Dhoni had placed me at straight mid-off. I took a catch there to send off Pollard, and as a result, we ended up winning the tournament," Hayden said.

Hayden played 32 matches in his IPL career for the Chennai Super Kings.

He scored 1107 runs at an average of 36.90 with his highest score being 93.

IPL 2020 was slated to begin from March 29, but it was postponed until April 15 due to the coronavirus pandemic.