FORMER Australian international cricketer Brad Hogg has discovered a renewed zest for life that’s helped revive his insatiable passion for the game and is yielding successes well beyond the cricket pitch.
Hogg spoke to a packed room of guests at the LIVEXchange gala dinner last night in Perth, revealing telling details of his personal life and rollercoaster-like cricketing journey.
He also took time out to sign copies of his latest book “Brad Hogg the Wrong Un” which also makes some forthright admissions about his private and public challenges.
Hogg’s effervescent and energetic on-stage presentation included wearing his baggy green Australian cap, and green and gold traditional tour jacket, while flipping a white ball from hand to hand as if perched at the top of his bowling mark ready to pounce and beguile his way through the defences of unsuspecting batsmen, on the field of battle.
His story was told with typical cheek and country wit, starting out with recollections of his early life on the family’s sheep and grains farm in the WA southern Wheatbelt where his life-long dream of playing cricket for Australia was planted as a five year boy who spooned his cricket bat at night or slept with a cricket ball under his pillow.
While watching his national heroes battling the mighty West Indies on television, he’d sit with his batting pads on ready and waiting in anticipation of a call to arms, as if he was listed next in line to face the opposition’s bowling attack.
His cricketing apprenticeship also included spending quality time as a teenager working on the Wandering property of his cricketing mentor and the then Australian vice-captain and opening batsman Geoff Marsh, undergoing a unique on-farm cricketing apprenticeship.
Their bonding sessions included a young Hogg doing odd farm jobs for most of the day, then feeding cricket balls for 90-minutes into the batting machine in the nets built on his hero’s farm late afternoons, before getting in a little bit of batting practice himself.
Hogg spoke about the various trials and tribulations of starting out as a rising star in the WA team as a specialist batsman and then gaining national selection after adding his highly-effective left-arm Chinaman spinner, to his all-round weaponry.
The now 46 year-old from Narrogin also gave an honest and frank assessment of his fall from grace after first winning a place in the Australian team against India for a Test match at Delhi in, 1996.
After returning home from that debut tour, where he also played some one-day matches, he struggled to regain form that next season, losing confidence and recognition, before eventually being dropped from the WA team for an 18-month period.
But after regaining his place, with a renewed attitude and more realistic understanding of playing for team-values and successes, rather than losing focus to pursue individual rewards, Hogg eventually earned his way back into the Australian side.
He became a record holder, of sorts, as the player with the longest gap – seven and a half years – between playing their first Test match for Australia and the second one.
Hogg spoke about his excitement upon returning to the Australian team for that second Test match against the West Indies and experiencing immediate success.
He took two early wickets with his fizzing deliveries, putting him on a hat-trick, and then faced-off, with a few friendly verbal jibes, against the era’s greatest batsman, in his view, Brian Lara – eventually earning mutual respect for the quality of contest.
Hogg’s big break in national colours came after legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne was suspended for taking a banned diuretic, on the eve of the 2003 World Cup tournament held in South Africa and Zimbabwe
The WA spinner was thrust into the limelight but played a leading role in Warne’s absence as Australia went on to claim the tournament title.
Hogg won two World Cups and played seven Tests but retired prematurely at the age of 38, in a bid to try to save his marriage and preserve a relationship with his children.
But that move to quit the game early came at a time when he believed he would have been picked to play for Australia in an upcoming Ashes series against England, as the team’s number one spinning-choice, following Warne’s retirement, to continue his cricketing dream.
Hogg spoke about shedding tears, virtually uncontrollably, while fielding during his last game playing for Australia against India at the Adelaide Oval in 2008 as the retirement decision weighed on conscience.
He explained the mutual resentment between he and his former wife - who had little love for cricket, if any - continued to escalate post-retirement, and had been present throughout their marriage as he often looked forward to being selected for tours, as an escape form home-life.
But he turned to drinking alcohol regularly in frustration, to escape his inner torment and lacklustre working life and career, post-cricket.
Hogg referred to dark scenes at the time, also highlighted in his book, where he would drove out to Port Beach in Fremantle and contemplated swimming out to sea and feeling lacklustre about whether or not he returned.
However, at that crisis point, he took a look at himself in the mirror, literally, after a heavy night out drinking and started to list plans for the future.
Within two weeks, he started achieving modest goals and seizing on opportunities like employment, and made a return to playing first grade cricket for his local Perth club side Willetton.
His personal turnaround gained further momentum when he was asked to play for the Perth Scorchers in the 20Twenty franchise in 2011 where his return to form included re-gaining national selection, in that popular version of the game, within several months.
Hogg also spoke about meeting his new partner Cheryl Bresland who has also been a driving force behind his new-found happiness and career and lifestyle revival.
He also talked about the tough decision he made to leave the Perth Scorchers after five successful seasons and repeated team successes, to play for the Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League, taking on a role of an elder statesman seeking to try to build a club culture and develop team success.
Hogg said it was important to look beyond the negatives, when confronted by seemingly overwhelming challenges in life and in sport, to find a positive breakthrough.
He’s also shown little appetite for retirement from top flight cricket amid talk he could play professionally, beyond the age of 50.