Hogan last played in Australia in 2016, seven years after he made an improbable debut for Western Australia at the age of 28 – improbable because he was still playing for a pub XI in his early twenties in between installing telephone cables.
He is now 41 and has been playing for Welsh club Glamorgan in English domestic cricket since 2013. In that time he has become embedded in the county, achieving cult status and taking hundreds of wickets.
That Orr was lbw was ironically appropriate as Hogan had completed an extraordinary career record in Glamorgan’s first innings of 9 for 533 declared.
Batting No. 11 he did not come to the crease, which meant he maintained his record of never being dismissed leg before in 380 matches. This, as Nick Friend of the Cricketer magazine noted in a profile this week, is a world record.
However, not batting did mean he fell one innings short of a century of not outs – this is assuming Hogan does not bat again.
With Sussex 445 behind with nine wickets left in a rain-affected match in which two days remain that seems probable, unless rain or victory for promotion rivals Middlesex turn it into a dead rubber, Glamorgan bat again, and Hogan is jokily promoted for one last hurrah.
But he has been very content in Wales. His Australian-born children talk with a Welsh accent – and can speak the Welsh language.
Hogan began to take cricket seriously after his brother was killed in a car crash. He decided it was time to stop ‘wasting your talent’. He has gone on to achieve 930 career dismissals, which is an impressive body of work. He didn’t waste his talent.