Hoggard, the hellraiser

<div class="section1"><div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="0" width="27.0%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/994062.cms" alt="/photo/994062.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Hoggard claimed 12 wickets against SA in the fourth Test.</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">Forget Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar.The flavour of the season is England’s Matthew Hoggard. In a game increasingly dominated by speedguns and deliveries hurtling towards the batsmen at 150 km per hour, Hoggard’s workhorse approach to classical seam bowling is like a breath of fresh air. <br /><br />Hoggard, from Yorkshire, claimed 12 wickets for 205 runs against South Africa as England won the fourth Test by 77 runs. In the process, he returned the best Test figures by an England bowler since Angus Fraser, who claimed 11 victims against the West Indies at Trinidad in 1997-98. <br /><br />Undeterred by his lack of pace, Hoggard in the company of more illustrious names –Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff – eschewed from straining for that extra bit of yard and elected to stick to his strength – swing and an immaculate line.<br /><br />Hoggard is a slippery customer whose deliveries tend to skid and surprise the batsmen with his stock ball being the delivery that shapes away from the right hand batsman. <br /><br />The Yorkshire man toured India back in 2001-02 when he had played just two Test matches. A tour to India is always arduous for seamers on wickets that tend to play true and offer more assistance to spinners. But Hoggard stuck to the task, failed to run through the Indian batting lineup but continued to charge in and bowl a disciplined line and length. <br /><br />A few months later Hoggard grabbed the headlines after running through the New Zealand batting lineup at Christchurch with figures of 7 for 65. But his waterloo proved to be against traditional rivals Australia where Matthew Hayden in particular tore into him.<br /><br />But armed with a better run-up to the bowling crease and his ability to keep coming back at the batsmen, Hoggard spearheaded an injured English bowling lineup to victory against South Africa. The burly bowler needs to no longer fear about being dumped on the fast-bowling scrapheap: England’s workhorse has become England’s champion and reminds one of the swinging sixties when seam bowling was at its best.<br /><br />It is always great to see the likes of Brett Lee make the needle on the speed gun race up and Shoaib Akhtar charge in with flaring nostrils but spare a thought for hardworking bowlers like Matthew Hoggard or even Glenn McGrath, the unsung heroes of pace bowling.<br /><br />At the end of the day, would you have a Lee and a Shoaib in the side who might break the stump mike and knock off a helmet once in a while or silent killers like McGrath and Hoggard who relentlessly keep on pegging away at the batsmen? Unfortunately, cricket is a television sport which thrives on glamour and has little room for the workmanlike skills of bowlers like Matthew Hoggard. <br /></div> </div>