Evergreen Hodge targets Pakistan Super League

Veteran Adelaide Strikers batsman Brad Hodge has thrown his hat in the ring to be part of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in Qatar next February.

Hodge, 40, enjoyed a productive stint in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) this year with Guyana, finishing as the tournament’s seventh-highest runs-scorer, and will again line up for the Strikers in his dual role of batsman and assistant coach in BBL|05.

The PSL, set to be staged in the Qatar capital of Doha, has already attracted the likes of West Indian T20 superstars Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, and Hodge has confirmed that he has applied to play in the tournament.

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“I’ve put my name down to be a part of it – fingers crossed, you never know what can happen,” he told cricket.com.au. “My name just gets put into a draft, and hopefully someone picks me up and I can contribute.

“There’s a lot of good players out there that I assume want to be involved, so we’ll see.

“I feel a little bit for the Pakistan cricket side, how they’ve had to play away and they’ve had no home cricket for a long time.

“They’re such an exciting team, their supporter base is really good, so I reckon this will be a good tournament to lift their spirits.

“It could be a landmark moment where people get back on board the Pakistan cricket cause.”

The inaugural season of the PSL is set to include five teams from the provincial capitals – Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta – and include 24 matches between February 4-24.

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Hodge, who has plied his trade in various domestic Twenty20 competitions around the world and is hoping to again play in next year’s CPL, said he was eagerly anticipating another season of the Big Bash, during which he will turn 41. 

“I’ve probably got a little bit left in me, which is nice,” he said. “I think if my performances drop off, I’ll know, but that hasn’t happened yet.

“The breaks actually really help your motivation. You get excited in the build-up to each tournament, whereas sometimes, when you’ve been in the game for this long and continue training Monday to Friday, you just drift in and out.

“I don’t have that anymore in my life – cricket season just comes, I get into the action and away I go.”

Hodge broke his arm during last year’s Big Bash season, his first with Adelaide, and missed much of the tournament before returning for the home final at which 52,000 Strikers fans watched their team lose to the Sydney Sixers.

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“I sort of feel like a new recruit this year,” he said. “But when I played at the new Adelaide Oval in front of a full crowd, as a Victorian, I had to actually question which venue was better out of the MCG or Adelaide – it was a tough call.

“It was quite a spectacle really. They’ve got a really good fan base there now and we played a good, exciting brand of cricket which they loved as well.”

Though he was lured to South Australia by former coach Darren Berry, Hodge is looking forward to the prospect of linking up with new mentor Jason Gillespie.

“Jason’s done well in the four-day comp over there (with Yorkshire in England) and hopefully he can bring some of that success to the Strikers,” he said.

“He’ll have his own ideas and the way he wants to do it, so I’ll fit in and work with Jason, find out the game plan and try to help those young kids that we have as best I possibly can.

“That’s the idea of having that experience in the side – you have to try to pass that knowledge on as well as you can.

“We saw some really good glimpses of that last year where it paid off. Travis Head went really well, Alex Ross came in and had a few cameos, which was something I’d spoken about with him after my own experiences with Rajasthan Royals.”