<\/p>\n
When a local sports reporter told Gold Coast cricketer Gareth Morgan he was going to write \u201ca bit of an article\u201d for the back page about Morgan\u2019s six wickets in an over the day before, the 44-year-old was surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to him: that\u2019s a little bit over the top for third grade cricket don\u2019t you think?\u201d Morgan recalls.<\/p>\n
By 9.30am the next day, after 2.5 hours of back-to-back interviews, the part-time bowler for Mudgeeraba Nerang and Districts Cricket<\/a> Club was doing a live cross with the BBC.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot that went on last week that was very bizarre for just a normal bloke like me,\u201d Morgan says.<\/p>\n A \u201cknowledge management supervisor\u201d at the Gold Coast city council, Morgan catapulted from cricketing obscurity to stardom when he took six wickets off the last six balls of a game<\/a> to single-handedly win a game for a team known as \u201cThe Bushmen\u201d. The highly unusual feat is sometimes called a \u201cquadruple hat-trick\u201d because it means four sequences of three wickets in a row \u2013 the first, second and third balls, the second, third and fourth and so on.<\/p>\n A week later, and there was added interest in whether he could keep his run of six consecutive wickets going.<\/p>\n Morgan had interstate visitors come watch the game, children wanting to have their picture taken. Some said they had come just to see him bowl.<\/p>\n But they never got their chance \u2013 Morgan didn\u2019t bowl in Saturday\u2019s win over Tamborine Mountain.<\/p>\n He had no one to blame but himself, given he\u2019s the Bushmen\u2019s captain.<\/p>\n \u201cMy role in the team is not to be a frontline bowler,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t often bowl myself in that third grade competition much at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan counts himself lucky enough to have learned a few things on the cricket pitch over the decades and sees his role as helping mentor young cricketers in his side as they cut their teeth against men.<\/p>\n On Saturday, Morgan had four deaf cricketers in his team, two of whom will travel with the Australian men\u2019s deaf team to play in Qatar.<\/p>\n \u201cI was trying to give them opportunities, give them some game time, teach them what I know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re helping these boys to maybe get an opportunity to live out their own dreams,\u201d he says. \u201cThe dreams we\u2019ve all had at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n Dreams Morgan got to live out, almost by accident, on the mature side of 40.<\/p>\n When Morgan talks about his sporting highlights, they are seeing his beloved Parramatta Eels make a rugby league grand final, being at the MCG when the Sydney Swans won the 2005 AFL grand final, going to Anfield to see Liverpool play.<\/p>\n With that six-wicket over against Surfers Paradise that captured the world\u2019s attention, the spotlight was on Morgan.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a kid growing up, you think of those moments, you see other people do it on TV,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n