SPORTING DECLARATION: Michael Hogan’s milestone

MICHAEL Hogan has never been one for personal statistics.

When he was playing City and Suburban lower-grade cricket on concrete pitches at the age of 20, the prospect of taking one wicket in professional company was beyond his wildest dreams.

So to rack up his 300th scalp in the first-class arena last weekend was a milestone that he admitted was slightly surreal.

‘‘It’s nice to keep on taking wickets and get to 300,’’ the former Merewether paceman told the Newcastle Herald.

‘‘It’s a good achievement … obviously I started at 28, so in the space of five years, to take 300 wickets in a short amount of time, if someone offered me that when I was 26 I would have bloody bitten their hand off.’’

Queensland opener Joe Burns, caught for a duck in Hogan’s opening over (pictured), was the right-armer’s 300th victim.

He claimed two more scalps in the Warriors’ outright win to move within 14 wickets of leg-spinning legend Robert Holland’s first-class tally of 316, which remains the most by any Novocastrian.

‘‘I wasn’t too aware of that,’’ Hogan said.

‘‘Dutchy obviously played for Australia, which I didn’t get to do. ‘‘But to finish with some sort of record for most first-class wickets takent by a Novocastrian would be really good.’’

Of Hogan’s dismissals, 172 have been for the Warriors since his belated debut in 2009, and a further 130 in his two seasons thus far with county side Glamorgan, at an economical combined average of 24.43. That does not include the 77 wickets he has taken in domestic one-day fixtures or a further 40 in the Twenty20 format.

Asked to nominate any batsmen that he particularly enjoyed dismissing, Hogan thought long and hard.

‘‘I know my milestone wickets,’’ he said. ‘‘I remember my first one, obviously, and my 100th, 200th and 300th. But I couldn’t tell you the ones in between.

‘‘When you’re playing back-to-back seasons you tend to forget the games after about two weeks.’’

Hogan did not take long to claim first blood when he finally broke into Sheffield Shield ranks.

‘‘It was Chris Rogers, at the MCG,’’ he recalled.

‘‘He went to defend one and edged it to first slip.’’

As if to prove that was no fluke, Hogan followed up with the wickets of Australian representatives Dave Hussey and Andrew McDonald to finish with a creditable 3-29 from 13 overs.

‘‘I’d played a couple of domestic one-day games before that and had taken a couple of wickets,’’ he said.

‘‘But to make my first-class debut in such an arena as the MCG, against a team like Victoria who at the time were the strongest team in the country, it’s obviously daunting.

‘‘To take a few wickets kind of gave me confidence I can compete and succeed at that level.’’

Pressed further to relive a career highlight, Hogan remembers dismissing Test stars George Bailey and Ed Cowan a ‘‘few times’’ each but settled on a player with a more illustrious reputation.

‘‘The one standout wicket I remember was Alastair Cook,’’ he said. ‘‘England came out for the Ashes and played a tour match at the WACA. It was the series they won [in 2010-11]. I think he averaged about 90 in that series but I ripped his off stump out.

‘‘I always remember that one because after that the Australians had a tough time getting him out.

‘‘So that one sticks in my mind.’’

When this columnist jokes that Cook must have been Hogan’s bunny and perhaps the towering right-armer should have played in that ill-fated Ashes campaign, he laughs and replies: ‘‘Yeah, I might have made a difference, but probably not.’’

Hogan’s stats suggest he would not have been out of place in the Baggy Green but circumstances mean that is unlikely to happen, given that he is now regarded as an English-qualified player, courtesy of his mother’s passport.

Instead he will focus on helping the table-topping Warriors break their Sheffield Shield drought.

And with 84 dismissals to his name in 2014 – three fewer than Bangladesh spinner Taijul Islam – he is on track to finish as the leading first-class wicket-taker in the world for the second consecutive year.

‘‘Hopefully there’s still a few more to be taken,’’ he said.