10 Greatest Bowling Performances of All Time in a Test Series

#2 Rodney Hogg: 41 wickets at 12.85 vs England (1978/79)

Rodney Hogg was blisteringly fast in his debut Ashes

If the 2001 team to tour India was one of the strongest in Australia's history, then the side that traveled for the 1978/79 Ashes was probably one of their weakest. World Series Cricket had removed almost the entirety of Australia's first eleven from the side and simultaneously exposed a lack of depth in the team. England had also lost some of their key players to the WSC's Rest of the World XI, but still fielded a team that included Geoff Boycott, Graham Gooch, David Gower, Ian Botham and Bob Willis.

The very first session of the series saw Australia slip to 6/26 and the tone was set there. England won the six match series 5-1, which is still their biggest win in Ashes history. Making England's win all the more impressive was that the series was played in Australia, and that all five of their wins were by resounding margins.

It is hard to fathom then that there was a player who had arguably the greatest series an Australian cricketer has had since Bradman. It is even more difficult to fathom that this player was someone who didn't even make his domestic debut until he was 24, his Test debut in the first Test of this series and someone who would never take more than 11 wickets in a series again.

Simply put, Australia could not have had a more unlikely hero than Rodney Hogg. Coming into the series, Hogg seemed like another passable state cricketer who had found himself in a flailing Australia side due to the team's absentees. However, after a few matches, Hogg looked like the lovechild of Fred Spofforth and a bolt of lightning.

Hogg was exceptionally quick, but also had a great deal of control. Match after match he ran through the England batting line-up, taking four or more wickets in seven of the eleven innings in which he bowled. In the lone game Australia won, Hogg ended with the figures of 10/66.

It is down to Hogg, and Hogg alone, that despite winning the series and five of the matches so emphatically, England never scored more than 360. It is difficult to imagine how disastrous the series would have been for Australia had they not called up his services, despite his selection for the series not even being a guarantee.

As the likes of Lille and Thompson returned, and his body began to betray him, Hogg would have to settle for being a peripheral figure in the Australian squad. Hogg would never reach the heights he did in his debut series, and would only manage to take one more five-for in his career. But for one summer Hogg was the pinnacle of pace bowling, the best Australia had seen in arguably the worst side they had seen. Hogg's 1978/79 Ashes was a miracle wrapped in a tragedy.