Brad Hogg
George Bradley Hogg (born 6 February 1971) is a former Australian cricketer who played all formats of the game. He was a left-arm wrist spin bowler, and a lower-order left-handed batsman. His earlier international career was revitalised by Shane Warne's absence from cricket in 2003 due to suspension from a drugs test and subsequent retirement from one-day cricket. He is Australia's ninth most successful One Day International bowler and second most successful spinner in terms of wickets taken. He was a member of Australia's victorious 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cup  teams. He retired from International cricket on 4 March 2008 after the 2007–08 Commonwealth Bank Series. In a surprise comeback to the T20 format at the inaugural Big Bash League in 2011, Hogg became a cult hero of the short form, bringing about a call-up to the 2012 and 2014 T20 World Cup Australia sides, as well as international T20 contracts around the world. Hogg is the world's current oldest top level cricket player, and the only player over 40 years of age to take 100 wickets in the T20 format. Hogg released "The Wrong'Un", an autobiography with  Greg Growden, in November 2016 and enjoys a career as a cricket commentator and has become a popular media personality between cricket commitments. Early life and career. Hogg grew up on a sheep farm in Williams, Western Australia as an only child, and is a former pupil of Aquinas College, Perth. Later, he completed a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Accounting & Marketing at Curtin University. Hogg made his first-class cricket and domestic limited overs debut for Western Australia in February 1994 as a middle order batsman. He did not begin to bowl left-arm wrist-spin until former Australian  test leg-spinner Tony Mann asked him to bowl them in the nets as preparation for the batsmen to face NSW spinner David Freedman. In 1999 he made a brief foray in umpiring Australian rules football, making his way up to Westar Rules Colts (under 18) level. International career. In 1996, he was selected in the Australian team to tour India as a replacement for Warne who was injured. He made his Test debut against India in Delhi, taking 1/69 and making 1 and 4. He also played seven One Day International matches. However, the belief at the time was  that he was merely a place-holder for Warne and he was discarded from the international squad for some time. Hogg was also in and out of the Western Australian squad for the next few years as he struggled for form. Hogg was absent from the international scene until called up to replace Warne during the 2002-03 VB Series (an annual tri-nations one day tournament in Australia) after Warne injured his shoulder. However, Warne then tested positive to a banned diuretic in a pre-World Cup drugs test, leaving Hogg to play as Australia's specialist spinner in  Australia's Cup winning side and filled that role until his own retirement, this was due to Warne's retirement from the one day game. Hogg was recalled to the Australian Test team to tour the West Indies in April 2003, where he played two matches (making his wait between his first and second Tests of seven years and 78 games the longest for an Australian ). He also played against Zimbabwe at the SCG later that year, but was upstaged by part-time slow left-arm wrist-spin Simon Katich, who took 6/90 for the match (Hogg took 3/119). He  was left out of the Test team pushy in 2004 but remained in the national one day team as the preferred spinner to Stuart MacGill. In 2005–06, he became a one-day only player with Western Australian selectors preferring to play young spinner Beau Casson ahead of Hogg in the state's Pura Cup side. However, with Casson's move to New South Wales in 2006–07, Hogg has regained his place in the first-class side. In 2007–08, after a four-year layoff, Hogg was recalled to Test cricket to play against India after Stuart MacGill had to withdraw from  the team due to suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome in his bowling hand. On 2 January 2008, Hogg scored a Test-career-best 79 as part of a 173-run partnership with Andrew Symonds—a 7th wicket record for both the Sydney Cricket Ground and Australia vs. India. Hogg's highest ODI score is 71 not out against England, and his best bowling figures in an innings are 5/32 against the West Indies. Hogg is a noted fitness fanatic, scoring the highest beep test result in the Australian team in 2005, with a score of 14.6. On 27 February 2008 , Hogg announced his retirement from international cricket, effective after the Commonwealth Bank Series. His test career (17 wickets at 54.88) was ultimately unremarkable, but his 156 One Day International wickets at 26.84 coupled with useful lower-order batting placed him among Australia's best one-day players. Comeback to cricket. On 4 November 2011, Hogg signed with the Perth Scorchers, one of the franchises in the Australian domestic Twenty20 competition, the Big Bash League. He took 12 wickets in the tournament at an average of 13.5, better than any other spinner in the competition bettered in wickets only by James  Faulkner and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. On 23 January 2012, on the back of his form with the Scorchers, Hogg earned a recall to the Australian Twenty20 squad. He was also picked up by Sylhet Royals for the inaugural Bangladesh Premier League, the Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras for the South African T20 League, the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League players auction, and the Sri Lanka T20 Tournaments. On 1 February 2012, Hogg returned to international cricket at the Sydney Olympic Stadium in a Twenty20 international against India, returning figures of one wicket (that of Virat Kohli) for 21  runs from four overs. In the second match of the Twenty20 series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, he took the wicket of Virender Sehwag in his first over, and ended up with bowling figures of 1/19. Hogg has since been selected for the 2014 Australian T20 World Cup team, plus the three games against Pakistan in Dubai in the leadup to that competition. On 7 February 2014, Hogg was man of the match in the winning Big Bash final with his team the Perth Scorchers. Over the tournament, Hogg had an economy rate of 6.19, the fifth best by a  spinner in the tournament. This earned him a recall to the Australian T20I team for the series in South Africa and the 2014 ICC World Twenty20. On 12 March that year he became the oldest player to play in T20I's, at 43 years and 34 days. He was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders at the 2015 IPL auction as a backup to replace Narine who was sidelined halfway into the season due to 'suspect bowling action'. Hogg triumphed in the role and took 9 wickets in six games, and won two-man of the match awards before Narine  assumed his position in the team again. On 28 April 2015, he became the oldest player ever to feature in an IPL match when he played against Chennai Super Kings at the age of 44 years and 81 days. He made headlines again in 2015 when he re-signed for the 2015/16 Perth Scorchers team in the BBL with his unique comedy announcement. Hogg made the surprising move from the Perth Scorchers to the Melbourne Renegades for BBL06. Approaching BBL08, he was left unsigned and has not featured in any form of cricket since. The Melbourne Renegades ultimately won the  title that season. Playing style. He is one of the few bowlers who bowls left-arm wrist spin in international cricket. He has an excellent wrong'un and a well-disguised flipper, which he used to bowl Andy Flower, who was then considered to be one of the world's best at playing spin bowling, during the 2003 World Cup. In his book, "Walking to Victory", Adam Gilchrist described it as "one of the balls of the tournament." During the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Hogg beat Andrew Flintoff with two consecutive wrong'uns, with the second one resulting in Flintoff being given  out stumped. Hogg is well known for his use of his tongue while bowling, poking it out just before he bowls, which was considered his trademark. Controversy. During the second test against India in Sydney it was alleged that Hogg called the Indian captain Anil Kumble and vice-captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni "bastards". Hogg faced a ban of between two and four Test matches after being charged with the level three offence under the International Cricket Council's Code of conduct which refers to abuse by reference to a player's "race, religion, gender, colour, descent, or national or ethnic  origin." The hearing was set to take place on 14 January in Perth, but the BCCI dropped the charges a few days later.