The death of Australian Test cricketer Phillip Hughes, two days after he sustained a head injury from a bouncer during a match in Sydney, has rocked the cricketing world. It has provided a grim reminder that even in these days, when protective gear abounds, cricket can be a dangerous sport. Hughes was only 25.
The video of the accident on Tuesday at the Sydney Cricket Ground makes for sickening viewing. Hughes, who was playing for South Australia and was aiming at a comeback into the Australia Test eleven, was hit on the back of his head after he missed an attempted hook shoot off a bouncer delivered by his former New South Wales teammate Sean Abbot.
After seemingly recovering, Hughes staggered for a few seconds, before collapsing face first on the pitch. He was delivered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before being rushed to a hospital, where he was placed in an induced coma. He did not regain consciousness again.
Precocious talent
Hughes’s rise as a Test cricketer was dazzling and in keeping with the precocity of his talents. In just his second Test match, played at Durban in 2009, against a fearsome South African attack comprising Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Makhaya Ntini, Hughes smashed a century in each inning. The second of these was pierced with swashbuckling and audacious stroke play.
“He can defend and he can lash,” wrote the late Peter Roebuck after the Durban Test. “He is going to score buckets. He has figured out the odds, knows the angles, trusts his eye and likes batting. His technique may be homespun but that does not mean it does not work. He has fast eyes, feet and wits. And he is going to play his part in a fresh, spirited and more vibrant Australian team.”
For a while, it seemed Hughes had the cricketing world at his mercy – greatness, it seemed, was only some time away. His unorthodox technique belied a rare cricketing intelligence. He had the knack of scoring runs even when he appeared uncomfortable.
Natural opener
But as happens in Test cricket, Hughes’s enormous highs were followed by troughs of poor form.
Bowling attacks began to work out the weaknesses in his technique, particularly against the short ball. As a result, Hughes found himself being pushed in and out of the Australian Test team. During the times he did play for the team, he came in at number three, four or even five. Yet, it was clear that Hughes, at his core, was an opener – one who, it seemed, had plenty of time to regain his place in the squad.
As the sports journalist Jesse Hogan wrote in The Age, “It was never a matter of if Phillip Hughes would return to Australia’s Test team, but when,” for he was a conscientious sportsman.
Right temperament
Hughes was not a technician in the conventional sense, but that was precisely why he was often fun to watch. A left-hander blessed with lightning quick hands, Hughes’s runs would come in heaps from strokes played to odd parts of the field. He often preferred the aerial route to the boundary over shots caressed along the ground. He was more of a cutter and a slasher, rather than a driver or a puller. He was susceptible against spin bowling during Australia’s most recent tour of India in March 2013. But he had shown in Colombo in 2011 when he made his third – and last – Test century that he had the temperament, the footwork, and the impudence to prosper in the Subcontinent.
We all love to watch fast bowling, not least for its pure visceral thrill. To suggest, as some have, that bouncers ought to be banned, after this incident, might be to overlook some fundamental facts. The manner of Hughes’s death is rare. Plenty of other batsmen have been hit by bouncers in the decades since the introduction of helmets, but almost each one has escaped the cruel fate that Hughes suffered.
Cricket administrators must no doubt continue to work towards making the game as safe as they possibly can. But at the same time we must remember that cricket, just as life, is vulnerable to the awful vicissitudes of luck.
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The video of the accident on Tuesday at the Sydney Cricket Ground makes for sickening viewing. Hughes, who was playing for South Australia and was aiming at a comeback into the Australia Test eleven, was hit on the back of his head after he missed an attempted hook shoot off a bouncer delivered by his former New South Wales teammate Sean Abbot.
After seemingly recovering, Hughes staggered for a few seconds, before collapsing face first on the pitch. He was delivered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before being rushed to a hospital, where he was placed in an induced coma. He did not regain consciousness again.
Precocious talent
Hughes’s rise as a Test cricketer was dazzling and in keeping with the precocity of his talents. In just his second Test match, played at Durban in 2009, against a fearsome South African attack comprising Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Makhaya Ntini, Hughes smashed a century in each inning. The second of these was pierced with swashbuckling and audacious stroke play.
“He can defend and he can lash,” wrote the late Peter Roebuck after the Durban Test. “He is going to score buckets. He has figured out the odds, knows the angles, trusts his eye and likes batting. His technique may be homespun but that does not mean it does not work. He has fast eyes, feet and wits. And he is going to play his part in a fresh, spirited and more vibrant Australian team.”
For a while, it seemed Hughes had the cricketing world at his mercy – greatness, it seemed, was only some time away. His unorthodox technique belied a rare cricketing intelligence. He had the knack of scoring runs even when he appeared uncomfortable.
Natural opener
But as happens in Test cricket, Hughes’s enormous highs were followed by troughs of poor form.
Bowling attacks began to work out the weaknesses in his technique, particularly against the short ball. As a result, Hughes found himself being pushed in and out of the Australian Test team. During the times he did play for the team, he came in at number three, four or even five. Yet, it was clear that Hughes, at his core, was an opener – one who, it seemed, had plenty of time to regain his place in the squad.
As the sports journalist Jesse Hogan wrote in The Age, “It was never a matter of if Phillip Hughes would return to Australia’s Test team, but when,” for he was a conscientious sportsman.
Right temperament
Hughes was not a technician in the conventional sense, but that was precisely why he was often fun to watch. A left-hander blessed with lightning quick hands, Hughes’s runs would come in heaps from strokes played to odd parts of the field. He often preferred the aerial route to the boundary over shots caressed along the ground. He was more of a cutter and a slasher, rather than a driver or a puller. He was susceptible against spin bowling during Australia’s most recent tour of India in March 2013. But he had shown in Colombo in 2011 when he made his third – and last – Test century that he had the temperament, the footwork, and the impudence to prosper in the Subcontinent.
We all love to watch fast bowling, not least for its pure visceral thrill. To suggest, as some have, that bouncers ought to be banned, after this incident, might be to overlook some fundamental facts. The manner of Hughes’s death is rare. Plenty of other batsmen have been hit by bouncers in the decades since the introduction of helmets, but almost each one has escaped the cruel fate that Hughes suffered.
Cricket administrators must no doubt continue to work towards making the game as safe as they possibly can. But at the same time we must remember that cricket, just as life, is vulnerable to the awful vicissitudes of luck.
