“I wanted to know more about how it affects people when they earn the baggy green,” Auteri says. “How did it change their lives? Did they keep their caps in an underground bunker guarded by Merv Hughes' doppelgangers?” Auteri pitched the idea of a book to HarperCollins - and he was never in any doubt about who he wanted to write it. Hogan had realised his childhood dream and become a sports journalist at The Age. “He was just a good guy and his love for cricket connected everyone,” Auteri says. “It was a no brainer.” In 2015, Hogan criss-crossed the globe interviewing cricketers including Marcus North, Simon Katich, Trent Copeland, Ed Cowan and Rob Quiney.

In early 2016 he had taken leave from The Age and was working 14-hour days on the book. And then - just two weeks before the first draft was due - Hogan had a massive stroke that left him unable to speak, write or walk. His friends and colleagues at The Age were devastated. But the shocked reactions to the news revealed how well regarded Hogan is throughout the cricket world. Twitter was flooded with well-wishers. “Request you all to pray for @Jesse_Hogan, deeply respected sports journalist of @theage. Jesse, you are a fighter. Prayers for you and yours,” Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Irfan tweeted to his almost 400,000 followers.

“It’s rare to see a cricket journalist so universally loved in the cricket world,” says ESPNcricinfo journalist Melinda Farrell. “He was an absolute stat geek - he was always coming up with these amazing details or statistics that nobody else had thought of. The crocs (he wore) were legendary. We had a nickname for him all through the British press: the nicest man in cricket." Hogan’s sister Lucy Towers says the family was gobsmacked by the number of people whose lives Jesse has touched. “He was so ridiculously modest we didn’t know he was an international name,” she says. Hogan had interviewed Rob Quiney for the book. Quiney told him - candidly - that the “huge, huge leap” to Test cricket was a shock to the system. “I’m always going to be proud that I’ve represented my country, but I just didn’t do it well,” he told Hogan. “That’s why you have the mixed feelings.”

Quiney says Hogan had the mantle of the “go to man” when it came to domestic cricket. “When you knew Jesse, you found out how good a bloke he was, how passionate he was. He took things seriously, but he loved a Simpson’s meme, which he would put out on Twitter, and that definitely resonated with me.” For Cap and Country, interviews with leading cricketers about the baggy green. After Hogan had his stroke and things seemed so dire for so long, no-one gave any more thought to the book. No-one that is except Hogan. Months after his stroke, Hogan asked his close friend, cricket writer and author Andrew Faulkner, to complete the work he had begun.

“I dropped everything else,” Faulkner says. “Jesse is everyone’s mate, he’s the cricketer’s cricket writer.” Faulkner interviewed Ellyse Perry for the book, who told him that Hogan was highly regarded for being one of the first journalists to cover women’s cricket. “A lot of where it is now (in the media) is clearly because of Jesse, he was doing this four years before everyone else,” Faulkner says. Recovery from a stroke can be a bastard. Hogan is walking, talking (although his speech is still affected) and after four years he can lift his damaged right arm. He still does rehab every weekday. “It is what it is,” he often says. Hogan says he is humbled the book - For Cap and Country - is about to be published.