Bengaluru: At a time when the viral vengeance is at its peak, India is indeed suffering. From oxygen to hospital beds, everything is at a premium.   

At the same time, many noble souls have and continue to supply medical equipment to the nation. 

Now, Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden has thrown his weight behind India. 

In a long post, he has praised India and taken into recognition the vast population, which makes it difficult to implement any programme. 

Such is his respect for India and its values that he has even hailed Tamil Nadu as his ‘spiritual home’. 

Here are a few excerpts:

“I have been visiting India for over a decade now and have travelled all over the country, especially Tamil Nadu which I consider my “spiritual home”. I have always had the highest respect for the leaders and public officials who are entrusted with the task of running such a diverse and vast country”.

“Wherever I went, the people greeted me with love and affection, for which I remain in their debt. I can proudly claim that I have seen India up close over the years and that is why my heart bleeds to see it not only in agony at the moment, but also for the bad press that has been hurled at it by those who I am not sure to spend any time here to understand India, its people, and their myriad challenges,” he wrote in a column for the Institute for Australia India Engagement, a think-tank based in Australia.

Further, sharing his opinion on the biased media coverage against India, Mathew Hayden wrote, “As a cricketer and lover of the game, I have maintained my association with the sport which has allowed me to come to India to cover the Indian Premier League (IPL). Many of my fellow countrymen have also been playing in the IPL for years. In this context, at a time when the world has been shutting doors on India and lambasting the Government, I thought of sharing my thoughts while in India, to give a perspective not available to those sitting thousands of miles away”.