Blond, blue-eyed, aggressive and menacingly fast, Rodney Hogg announced himself with 41 wickets for World Series-depleted Australia against England in 1978-79: he took ten twice in succession, in Perth and Melbourne, and seven apiece in Brisbane and Adelaide. The way he regularly beat Geoff Boycott for pace in that series thrilled Australia at a lean time.

Three years on, Hogg took seven again against England at the MCG, but Australia fell four runs short in a nailbiter where Jeff Thomson and Allan Border nearly got them across the line. At the start of 1984, his last year in Test cricket, he produced his only fifty, against a West Indies line-up that featured Joel Garner, Wayne Daniel and Winston Davis no less.

Hogg's was a career interrupted by Injury and a rebel tour to South Africa, but when he was fit and available, he was generally in Australia's first rank.

A quirky character, he once had his wife erase the videotape of a soft dismissal while batting in a Test, saying he did not want his son to see him as a coward. Later, he fulfilled a long-held ambition to open a greengrocery.