Hoggard was very generous with his time, giving an engaging speech about his career, followed by an extensive question and answer session. He focused on the historic 2005 series and his view of the great players of his era, including his ex-team mate, Kevin Pietersen.
His speech detailed highlights of his career, starting from the early days when he broke in to the Yorkshire side. He spoke of his mentor Phil Carrick predicting that he and the club’s young overseas player VVS Laxman would eventually play against each other at international level (they did in front of 80,000 at Mumbai).
Hoggard took guests through some of his experiences with the old style drinking culture in cricket in England and as a young overseas pro in South Africa. The highlight was how, worse for wear in a key semi final, he managed to put in a strong performance which helped propel him to the international side at the age of 24. With wit and clear passion for the game he communicated to cricket lovers, and guests who know nothing of the game, his joy at having played sport at the highest level.
In the Q&A he told the crowd about his most feared opponent and the fiercest competitor: Brian Lara, (“because he could hit your best ball to five parts of the ground”) and Shane Warne respectively. On the great KP question, he supports Alistair Cook’s decision to drop him. Genius though Pietersen undoubtedly was, Hoggy pointed out that he could be unliveable with at times and thus disruptive to the team ethic.
He was especially happy to speak at length about the historic win against Australia in 2005 that followed 18 years of English defeats. He didn’t think the series was gone after the first game, but when Simon Jones dropped Michael Kasprowicz with 15 needed at Birmingham, he thought they’d blown it. And his story of how he went from nervous wreck to sumptuous cover driver at Trent Bridge warmed the heart of all England cricket fans.
Thanks to Richard Neale and Joost Mees for organising what all agreed was the best OCC dinner for many years. Also the tombola raised over €3,500 for the Tricentenaire centre for handicapped people, located in Walferdange.
OCC award winners 2018
- Best batsman: Richard Neale
- Best bowler: Vikram Vijh
- Best fielder: James Barker
- All-rounder: Vikram Vijh
- Best performance: Ben Embleton
- Club member: Phil Burleigh