Brad Hodge - First-class Career

First-class Career

Hodge debuted for the Victorian Bushrangers as a 19-year-old and was nicknamed "Glovelick" by Dean Jones for the fact that he shared a bunkbed with his brother at the time of his debut. He was also called "Bunkie" for the same reason.

Hodge played Lancashire League Cricket for Ramsbottom in 2000 and 2001 breaking the clubs batting record in 2001.

Hodge has played with County Cricket teams Durham, Lancashire and Leicestershire, where he made his highest first class score of 302*. During his time at Leicestershire he was accused of cheating by then Derbyshire captain, Dominic Cork by claiming a catch although it appeared that he had stepped over the boundary rope in a Twenty20 match in June 2003. Hodge denied the accusation.

Hodge scored many runs for Victoria and his consistency came together by the 2000–01 season where he was consistently overlooked for selection despite being one of Australia's premier domestic batsmen. He has argued he was the victim of New South Wales selection bias.

On 21 November 2007, playing for Victoria against Queensland, Hodge made his highest Pura Cup score of 286*. He and Nick Jewell had batted undefeated for the entire third day of the game, only the fourth wicketless day's play in the history of the competition.

During the match against Queensland at the MCG on 7 March 2009, he scored 261. During this innings he became the 6th batsman to pass 10,000 Sheffield Shield runs.

He also became the first to score a century in Australian domestic Twenty20, scoring 106 off 54 deliveries for Victoria against New South Wales at North Sydney, 21 January 2006.

In December 2009, Hodge announced his retirement from first class cricket to focus on the one-day and Twenty20 versions of the game. Hodge finished his domestic first class career as Victoria's all time leading run scorer. In January 2012, he retired from one-day cricket to focus exclusively on the Twenty20 game. At the time, he was the leading run-scorer in the 2011–12 Ryobi One-Day Cup.