Michael Hogan (Part 1): The Australian Years

CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket Podcast

In this episode we hear from Glamorgan bowler Michael Hogan who has been with the welsh county since 2013 but has a first class career going back to 2009 with Western Australia.
In this the first of three episodes chatting to Michael he talks about his hometown of Newcastle in Eastern Australia, his family and his earliest sporting experiences. Michael was very late coming to the first class game ( he was 28 when he made his debut for Western Australia) and he explains the reasons for this.
One big love he had was surfing and the sport dominated his teenage years. He loved watching cricket and his childhood cricketing heroes were Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.
He talks about his early experiences of grade cricket in Sydney and the early difficulties he had convincing himself that he was good enough to play more competitively. Part of this process was accepting that his bowling action was right for him. He confirms that this is an important message from him for youngsters to stick with what works for them as long as its safe to do so.
Michael lost his mother to cancer during his teenage years and also lost his younger brother in a car accident whilst playing grade cricket. Both experiences had a big impact on him. He describes this and talks about how tragedy made him more determined to succeed or, as he puts it, 'taking something good out of a bad situation'.
He describes how a phone call from Tom Moody changed his expectations about where he could make it to the first class game. At the drop of a hat he flies to Perth for a trial with Western Australia, did well and was offered a contract for the 2009-10 season. The first game of the season was a 50 over game against Queensland. Michael describes this as well as his first Sheffield Shield game.
For those interested in Michael's career you can check the following museum page and the ESPN Cricinfo page:
https://glamorgancricketarchives.com/michael-hogan/
https://www.espncricinfo.com/player/michael-hogan-275658
Michael talks about playing in the Big Bash as well as how he developed his own particular approach to batting. He was Player of the Year for Western Australia in in 2009/10 and he talks about how he played better when the people around him put trust in him and expected him to play a leadership role.
Finally, Michael reflects on his chances of playing Test cricket for Australia.