Under pressure Australian opener Matthew Hayden's future would be reviewed at the end of the Test series against South Africa, coach Tim Nielsen said.
Nielsen admitted that Hayden's prolonged bad patch was putting pressure on Australia's top order but said the team management will have to be patient on the Queenslander who has 8524 Test runs behind him though scored just 48 runs at an average of 9.6 this summer.
"At the end of the series we will sit down and see where he is. It will make it more difficult if his scores are not as consistent as he would like them to be, but at the moment we just have to be patient," Nielsen said.
"It's nice for the rest of the team when he is in form. We have had Ricky Ponting in inside the first 10 overs a few times and that can wear down your top order a bit. Our opening bats know they have to set up a platform for the middle order and at the moment Matt hasn't got the runs he would like," Nielsen was quoted as saying by Sydney Morning Herald.
Nielsen suggested that despite all the speculation of Hayden's retirement, the Queenslander had made a private decision to continue till the next Ashes.
"I think he has in his own way, he just might not have come out and said it publicly. He is still playing for Australia and hasn't even contemplated too much not going here and not going there.
"There was a lot of speculation around his 100th Test match, what he might be doing in the future, but I think that was because it was such a big milestone for him, it wasn't, 'I am going to get to 100 and stop'."
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