Carpenter to Baggy Green: Doggett set for next chapter

Brendan Doggett reckons he has lived two lives; the first as an apprentice carpenter, the second as a professional cricketer. If he makes his Test debut this week, it could well be the start of a third.

The transition between Doggett's first two lives was swift. In 2018, only three years removed from playing second grade in Brisbane club cricket, the then 24-year-old was an out-of-the-blue call-up for Australia's series against Pakistan in the UAE, Justin Langer's first Test assignment as coach. 

The squad arrived in Dubai for an intense fitness camp in the desert heat. "I thought I was on SAS or something," Doggett said in Perth this week ahead of the NRMA Insurance Ashes series opener.

"It was intense. It was a bit of a wake-up call. I'll be honest, I sort of got there and was like, 'Woah, this is what international cricket is, this is what Test cricket's like, these are the demands'."

It was not as if Doggett had not done a hard day's work before. 

The Toowoomba product was building houses in southwest Queensland, rising before dawn and then driving 90 minutes after work to Brisbane twice a week for training at Western Suburbs Cricket Club, where he played with his brother, Sam. 

The Rockhampton-born quick, a proud Worimi man from the Newcastle region, had just about completed his carpentry course when he learnt he had been awarded a rookie contract with Queensland in 2016 on the back of his strong Premier Cricket efforts.

Doggett then won his way into the Test squad two years later after collecting 28 wickets at 27.71 in his maiden Sheffield Shield season for Queensland, helping the Bulls to the 2017-18 title. 

"I was a bit of a deer in the headlights," he said of his taste of an international tour. "I'd played 12 months of first-class cricket. We won the Shield that year with Queensland, so things were sort of just happening for me and falling in my lap … everything sort of happened really fast. 

"I had my head in the clouds. I still saw myself as a carpenter as well."

Remarkably, it was injuries to Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood that opened the door for his first international call-up. Seven years on, and with Doggett still uncapped, it is the absence of those same two bowlers again that will likely see him win a Baggy Green.

That did not seem likely when the first Test squad was first picked. Since then, both Hazlewood and Sean Abbott have gone with hamstring strains. Doggett learnt of the former's injury while waiting to bat in a Shield match last week.

"We lost a few quick wickets at Hobart and I was getting the whites on to pad up, so I was already nervous," said Doggett. 

"Heady (Test batter Travis Head) was sitting next to me and broke the (Hazlewood) news to me. He was winding me up a bit. It was not really what I needed at the time. 

"The current situation of that game – I sort of had to focus on that and be like 'what am I doing here?' and try to get my head around potentially batting to try and win a game for South Australia. 

"But when Heady told me, I mean of course, your brain's going a million miles an hour and you're sort of thinking of what might happen." 

Doggett's move to SA in 2021 – an agonising decision given he was fresh off his second Shield title with the Bulls and had formed a close bond with their bowling coach Andy Bichel – has proven career-defining. It did not, however, seem as though he was on the fast track to a return to the Test side, now under the more temperate Andrew McDonald regime.

The right-armer dealt with several injuries and did not play more than six Shield games in his first three seasons with his new state. The turning point came last summer when he jumped a host of fringe Australia bowlers to establish himself as the country's clear best seamer outside the main Test crop.

Doggett was not among the first seven fast bowlers initially picked to play for Australia A at the start of the 2024-25 summer. After multiple injuries saw him brought in to play against India A in Mackay, he took 6-15 amid a dominant stretch of form. Since the start of that season, his 66 first-class wickets have come at 21.16 – including 11 in SA's drought-breaking Shield final triumph in March – to fire him into Test calculations.

"I don't know how ready you can be for Test cricket. But the last 18 months to two years for me has easily been the most successful I've been in terms of numbers, but also just confidence in my body, confidence in my game," Doggett said.

"So I'm as ready as I think I can be and my games at the best as it has been in my career … It definitely feels the closest it's ever been to getting a Baggy Green, but we've obviously got to wait and see."

The influence of Test pacemen Jason Gillespie and Ryan Harris, SA's two coaches since Doggett moved to Adelaide, has been telling. Becoming a father two and a half years ago to a son (his second child, a girl, is due in March) has also changed his outlook. All through it, he has never forgotten where he started.

"I feel like I've lived two lives," he said. "Early on my career, I felt lucky just to be here and have this opportunity. I still do. It's a great way to just have gratitude for the situation.

"Even this week, my (old) boss has been texting me and tradesmen that I worked with, and people I used to come across on job sites have been messaging me. It takes me back to those days and just reminds me of who I really am. 

"This feels like everything at the moment, but I go back to Toowoomba, and I'm just a tradie again, I guess. Put a nail-bag on and keep building house – I loved that life. I was playing cricket and working as a carpenter and that was a dream for me. 

"Life was good and cruisy, so this is just all a bonus."

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: November 21-25, Perth Stadium, 1:20pm AEDT

Second Test: December 4-8, The Gabba, Brisbane (D/N), 3pm AEDT

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad: (First Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood