Bet you can’t find a more appropriate Australia Day poster boy than Peter Siddle.
The former woodchopper has the Southern Cross tattooed on his broad back.
He calls a spade a bloody shovel in a distinctive drawl.
He plays his cricket like a bogan in baggy green; a hard man from a hard country.
Siddle sliced through India’s vaunted batting line-up, taking 5-49 on day three of the fourth Test.
On a batting belter of an Adelaide pitch, and in withering heat, the 27-year-old from the tough Victorian town of Morwell became Australia’s sporting hero on Australia Day.
Siddle seemingly belongs to a bygone era, when fast bowlers such as Dennis Lillee used raw aggression to unsettle batsmen.
Siddle is not in Lillee’s class – who is?
But the quick man who didn’t take up cricket until age 14 has fast become the mainstay of Australia’s bowling attack.
Siddle’s Australia Day heroics started with cricket’s most prized wicket, that of Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar.
The Australian, bending his back on the benign pitch, produced a delivery which flew off the edge of Tendulkar’s bat and into Ricky Ponting’s hands at second slip.
As has become customary, Siddle’s celebration appeared to contain more anger than happiness – a fiery contorted face, fists pumping the air, as team-mates flocked to congratulate.
In his next over, he removed the usually composed Indian opener Gautam Gambhir with a delivery which did justice to one of Siddle’s nicknames – ‘Vicious’.
The ball rose at Gambhir’s throat and plopped up, with gully fieldsman Mike Hussey diving full stretch to complete the catch.
Later on Australia’s day, as the sun-soaked crowd on the hill under the scoreboard became increasingly rowdy, Siddle was their man.
The 30-Test veteran blasted out Ravi Ashwin and Zaheer Khan with consecutive balls.
As the crowd chanted his name in true Lil-lee style, Siddle roared in for the hat-trick.
But Ishant Sharma’s defensive prod denied him the feat – remarkably, the third time this series the Indian tailender has thwarted a hat-trick attempt.
