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Cameron White gives congratulation to Brad Hodge on scoring a fifty

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Glenn McGrath and Brad Hodge celebrating a wicket

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Brad Hodge and Brett Lee Unveiling the Sheffield Shield in Melbourne

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Brad Hodge and Brendon McCollum celebrates a wicket

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Brad Hodge bowled by Shane Warne

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Brad Hodge celebrates a Hundred against Western Australia

Brad Hodge clean bowled by Jeetan Patel

Brad Hodge clean bowled by Jeetan Patel

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Brad Hodge playing a shot through off side

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Brad Hodge playing a sweep shot against New South Wales

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Brad Hodge playing a straight drive against New South Wales

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Brad Hodge and Michael Hussey during a practice session

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Brad Hodge runs out by Makhaya Ntini at Centurion

As the 2009-10 season indoors Hodge’s heart was no longer in first-class cricket. With 195 in opposition to South Australia he embarked on the summer, as he had reached his century, he had an epiphany, remnant was near and he got underway the new ball over the bowler’s head for six. Hodge said it be a signed of he no longer had the constrain to play the longer format and he soon retired, although he publicized he would stay on in Victoria’s limited-overs teams for another two seasons. And why not? In 2009-10 he contentedly pinnacle the FR Cup tally with 622 runs at 69.11, together with four centuries, and hang about one of the world’s best Twenty20 batsmen.

When Ricky Ponting rested in 2006-07 he had enforced his way into the ODI side, and a 97 and 99 not out won him a place in the World Cup squadron. He as a final point got in touch with three figures with 123 off 89 balls against the Netherlands in the Caribbean, but unfortunately, it was his last bat in the tournament and he gaze at the final from the dressing room. It had be converted into an all-too familiar presentation platform. In 2005-06 season Hodge was considered to be an Australia’s unluckiest casualty of batting change. In November on tours to India, New Zealand and England, he preferred for his first Test after being the reserve, he unfastened with a effortless 60 and by the end of the home summer had 409 runs at a green with envy average.

As the selectors came back to Damien Martyn and Michael Clarke, still it was not an adequate amount to earn a spot on the South Africa trip. Included in his five outings was an triumphant 203 against South Africa in Perth, where he connected his boyhood idol Dean Jones as one of five Australians to make their maiden century a double. After the Two Tests, Hodge, an insignificant right-hander who is considered to be supplementary quiet and laid back than Jones, was jumped down amid whispers of a methodological imperfection in opposition to fast bowling, a short drought in the Pura Cup and a selection “judgment call”. He pulled out himself up with a century in the domestic final loss to Queensland but remained on the fringes of the national side, creating occasional one-day and Twenty20 outward show. Until 2009-10 he apprehended on to his Cricket Australia agreement, but was on no account examined by the selectors as anything but a back-up plan.

A habitual and unswerving performer for his state and counties, as an 18-year-old and he almost compiled 1000 runs in the season as he established quickly at No. 4, Hodge’s Victorian debut came in 1993-94. The subsequent years were quit difficult, but he returned from the dips as a more whole player, carrying a classical modus operandi and the ability to direct shots to all parts of the ground. In the order of time after time extraordinary one-day returns, Hodge passed the 1000 barrier in the 2000-01 first-class summer when he was a key player in the Bushrangers’ march to a second successive Pura Cup final. Supplementary of the same output was discovered in 2001-02, when he communal the domestic Player-of-the-Season award with Queensland’s Jimmy Maher, and his consistency hard-pressed him towards international admiration.

In 2002 after an epigrammatic spell with Durham, Hodge depleted two industrious summers at Leicestershire, in 2004 leading them to a domestic one-day trophy and making the county’s highest individual score of 302 not out against Nottinghamshire the season before, in 2005 stimulated to Lancashire. In 2004 he rewarded with his first Cricket Australia contract, he was pulled out for the India tour and well thought-out for the opening Test, but narrowly missed a place taken spectacularly by Clarke.