Introduction
Rodney Malcolm Hogg (born 5 March 1951) is a former Victorian, South Australian and Australian cricketer. He was a fast bowler. Hogg played in 38 Tests and 71 ODIs between 1978 and 1985. In Tests he took 123 wickets at an average of 28.47.
Career
Early career
Hogg had asthma as a child and battled it through his career.
Hogg started out as a batsman before switching to be an aggressive fast bowler.
He played for Victorian Colts in 1972-73.
He was not able to break into the Victoria side so he transferred to South Australia where he began his career in 1975–76.
World Series Cricket years
From the summer of 1977-78, until the 1979 tour of India, Australian cricket was significantly weakened by the defection of most leading players to World Series Cricket (WSC).
Hogg made his test debut during the 1978–79 Ashes home series versus England. He had an excellent series, taking 41 wickets at an average of 12.85 during the six-match series, including six wickets on debut in the first innings of the first Test. The 41 wickets in a series was a record for an Australian in an Ashes series (later broken by Terry Alderman), and is still (at the end of 2016) equal fifth for any player in any series.
He also played every test in the subsequent series against Pakistan and India. He played 14 tests in all during the World Series Cricket years.
In 1979 Hogg was involved in an incident on the second day of the second Test between India and Australia in Bangalore. After being no-balled 11 times in six overs, Hogg bowled a beamer, kicked down the stumps and stormed off the field. His captain Kim Hughes tendered an immediate apology to the umpire and persuaded Hogg to express his apologies also.
Later test career
After the WSC players became available, Hogg played 24 more tests between 1979 and 1984.
During the 1983-84 season, Hogg took 1-10 in the McDonald's Cup semi final, helping South Australia win. He won man of the match.
He toured India in the 1984-85 season.
South African rebel tour
Rodney Hogg was interested in touring South Africa. He met with Ali Bacher in London during the 1983 Cricket World Cup. "I was pretty much in from day one," said Hogg. I was in my mid-30s, and the idea was that the tour wouldn't happen for another year or two. Had it been on in 1983, I'd have been less interested as I was still in the Test side and doing well at the time.... I was pretty happy with the money on offer. My career was pretty much over by then. Fast bowlers don't last forever. Prime minister [Bob] Hawke called us traitors. I thought that if it was okay for Hawke to trade with South Africa, it was okay for me to go and play cricket there."
During the 1984–85 season, Hogg was made the vice-captain of the national side. However Kim Hughes resigned the captaincy and both he and Hogg signed up for two rebel tours to South Africa in 1985–86 and 1986–87 during apartheid times. This gave him a three-year ban practically ending his international career. In 1984–85 Hogg returned to play for Victoria but only played two first class matches and two one day matches. That season he mostly played for the national team and he spent the following seasons in South Africa.
"I have no regrets whatsoever about going on those tours," he said in 2016.
Post-playing career
After retirement from first class cricket, Hogg was a bowling coach for the Victorian team working alongside David Hookes.
In 2005-06 he was a selector for Victoria.
On Australia Day 2012 Hogg sparked a controversy when he posted an offensive tweet about Allah. He later removed the tweet and apologised, claiming it was just a bad attempt at Australian humour.
Hogg's autobiography is titled The Whole Hogg - Inside the mind of a lunatic fast bowler. He said that former England captain Mike Brearley had a "degree in people".
In 1990, when Shane Warne made his first class debut, Hogg boldly predicted in his column in The Truth that Warne would play 100 tests and take 500 wickets.Hogg said he was sacked from the column soon after, but Warne exceeded the prediction, taking 708 wickets in 145 tests.
Rodney Hogg has been a regular commentator for Channel 7 in Australia and since 2001 has been working as a corporate speaker throughout Australia.