Now finding himself firmly in his post-England career, Hoggy seems to have assigned himself the role of county cricket’s eccentric uncle. Anyone who tells you modern sport lacks characters needs to be taken to see Yorkshire play, as there he is, pacing around the outfield like a polar bear driven insane by captivity, shouting out increasingly random encouragement and a bewildering array of nonsensical teammate nicknames. Older observers may detect a hint of Arnie Sidebottom as he chuntters disapprovingly to himself about the latest flat top he’s been asked to bowl on.

It was those flat wickets, combined with the team’s collective outbreak of butter fingers, which required Hoggard to be on top of his game and give us the cutting edge we needed this season. For the first half of the summer he did a pretty good job, with 28 wickets @ 27.50 from seven games, many of them on absolute featherbeds, and including two five wicket hauls. But that’s in stark comparison to the final eight matches, where his 15 wickets cost 46 each, and whose only real highlight was the hat-trick at Hove which proved the coup de grace to Sussex’s teetering second innings.

You can only guess as to the cause of that reduced effectiveness, but somehow you can’t help feel that the on-going speculation about his future had a major, and unsettling, effect. As with a new contract still unsigned, Worcestershire making a formal approach, and other counties rumoured to be interested, the uncertainty surrounding him lasted most of the season and still continues now.

It may be difficult for Yorkshire to compete on financial terms with some of the counties in the market place, but if we can, we need to secure Hoggard’s services for next year and beyond. With Kruis now retired, Bresnan likely to be away on one-day duty for much of next season, and overseas players free for the entire season as rare as tartan clouds, we desperately need the settled Hoggard of early season back again.

Championship – 15 matches, 195 runs @ 15.00, 43 wickets @ 34.11

Pro40 – 3 matches, 2 wickets @ 41.50

(Hoggard photo: By kind permission of Dave Morton)