RIP Phil Hughes

LAST weekend the family went around my brother's place to celebrate his 26th birthday. Friends, family and a vodka-infused boob cake (exactly as it sounds) helped him mark the occasion with the dignity and shenanigans it deserved.

I'm not sure if Phillip Joel Hughes was planning the same thing for a week later. Probably not - after a Shield game at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) he was tipped to replace skipper Michael Clarke in the Test team to play India starting December 4. It would have been his first Test in about 18 months, so I'm not sure his birthday plans involved motorboating said vodka-infused bob cake.

We'll never know.

While playing for South Australia against New South Wales Phillip Hughes went to play the pull shot off fast-medium bowler Sean Abbott. They had been team-mates in Australia's recent tour of the United Arab Emirates, where they had both made their Twenty20 International debuts in a match against Pakistan. Both were seemingly on the way up: Abbott made his T20 and One-Day International debuts on that tour, while Hughes was widely tipped to be the next great Australian Test opener.

Hughes had played the pull shot many times in his career, had faced short-pitched (aimed at the batsman's head) bowling from many of the world's greatest bowlers. In 2009 he'd made his Test debut against South Africa in South Africa, moving up from a duck (0) in his first innings to 75 in his second, to scores of 115 and 160 in just his second Test. Nobody had hit two centuries in the one Test at a younger age (20 years and 98 days) - and rarely can anyone have completed the feat against better bowlers. Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini, Jacques Kallis and Morne Morkel all had or would have over 200 wickets each, yet here was this tiny bloke smacking them around. How could they stop him?

In the 2009 Ashes England found a way. Bowling fast and straight they cramped Hughes for room, leading to him being dropped after the Second Test and him with the faux pas of announcing his dropping on Twitter before Cricket Australia had officially announced it. That was the first time he was dropped from the Test team; there'd be a few more down the track. One such time was when he edged New Zealand seamer Chris Martin to fielder Martin Guptill four consecutive times; as commentator Kerry O'Keefe said, if Hughes had nicked himself shaving Guptill would have been there with the band-aid!

So Hughes was no mug with the bat. At one point he was even a world record holder, taking part in a 163-run 10th wicket stand with debutant Ashton Agar. Naturally, a couple of Tests later Hughes was dropped.


THE ball-by-ball commentary on cricket.com.au's website reads:

48.3Abbott to Phil Hughes

No run, problem here, misses a pull shot and hit, urgent treatment needed

Comment

He'd been leaving the short balls, had a go at this one, misjudged it and was hit in the back of the head. He blacked out and fell badly on his face. Medics are assisting now.

Comment

Phillip Hughes is heading off here on a stretcher on a medicab. They're holding his head and it doesn't look at all good. All the players are now coming off.

Two days later Phillip Joel Hughes died in hospital as a result of that hit. When the ball hit him on the neck it ruptured an artery that feeds blood directly into the brain. The Vertebral Artery Dissection that resulted has only been recorded around 100 times in medical literature, and only once by a cricket ball. Phil Hughes was a freakishly talented batsman killed by a freakish accident.


DRIVING back home from my brother's I took the time to remember back to when I turned 26. I was living in London and had just finished my first season as a tour guide; in the intervening eight years I have been lucky enough to travel the world (often while getting paid for it), had grown immensely as a person and had met some of the most amazing people, many who I'm still proud to call my friends. For me 26 was where I became who I am today. I'm sure my brother will go through that and a fair bit more as he grows older.

Phil Hughes was just one week younger than my brother, but he didn't make it to 26. That he died playing the sport he loved - the sport so many of us love - makes it all the more poignant.

Rest in peace.