Hogan wins tale of two Australians
Mark Pennell sees Michael Hogan end the year with a career-best, while another career is just beginning...
An incident packed match of stark contrasts finished inside three days as a relatively inexperienced and experimental Glamorgan outfit outfought a reasonably experienced yet downbeat Kent side to deservedly secure their third win of the season.
The game’s main juxtaposition came with the form and know-how provided by the two Australians playing for their respective counties; Glamorgan’s veteran paceman Michael Hogan and Kent’s rookie all-rounder and first-class debutant, Grant Stewart.
Down the years Hogan has proved to be Kent’s bowling nemesis. The 36-year-old’s dismissal of Sam Northeast on day two marked his 500th wicket in first-class cricket.
And for good measure, Hogan finished with career-best match figures of 10 for 87, beating his previous best of 10 for 125, also taken against Kent at the Swalec Stadium in 2014.
A late starter in the game, Hogan made his first-class debut aged 28, so has effectively taken his 500 wickets in only eight years and with Kent feeling much of the brunt. To date the Newcastle-born bowler has taken 58 wickets against the Canterbury-based club and feels, even at the age of 36, that there is still power to add.
Hogan said: “I was happy to get a game at WA to start with and it all rolled along from there. I’ve chipped away, worked hard on my skills and thought at one point that if I could get to 200 wickets I’d be happy. I never envisaged 500, but who knows where it will end now.
“I guess being able to play back-toback in England and then back at home for the past eight years has helped me get to this milestone fairly quickly. But there’s no secret to it, apart from the fact I enjoy getting up in the morning and going out to bowl. I do a lot of bowling in the nets and I don’t like resting or missing matches, but generally I keep fit by bowling.”
At the other end of the cricketing career scale Stewart, who played grade cricket for Hogan’s home-town club of Newcastle, was making his first-class bow having starred for Kent’s 2nd XI over the past two seasons as well as Shepherd Neame Kent League side, Sandwich Town.
Australian-raised by an Italian mother and playing county cricket courtesy of an EU passport, Stewart finally became a Man of Kent in his 10th over of the match by having Craig Meschede caught behind by Sam Billings. The Kent keeper answered England’s SOS for the fourth ODI at the Oval soon afterwards and was replaced by Adam Rouse, who abandoned his round at Canterbury Golf Club on the sixth hole and walked out to bat half-an-hour later.
Much like Hogan, Stewart, a 23-yearold qualified civil engineer, is starting his cricketing career relatively late in life, but, as part of a modest Kent side seemingly lacking in self-belief as they contemplate their eighth successive season in the second tier, his will be a steep learning curve. Stewart summed it up succinctly, he said: “‘Hoges’ is quite a legend around Newcastle and if I can have half the career he’s had then I’ll be happy.”