On Thursday, Phillip Hughes, one of cricket’s most popular and promising figures, died aged just 25. Cricket fans the world over have been in mourning, with hundreds and thousands of tributes pouring in from ex-players, team-mates, fans and even people with no connection to cricket whatsoever. The trend “Put Your Bats Out”, in honour of the Australian, has been observed by scores of people, businesses and websites, and you will notice upon reading this that lastwordonsports have put a virtual cricket bat on the website header.
I’m sure you know the story. Hughes, playing in a Sheffield Shield match for South Australia against New South Wales, his international career finally looking bright once again—an injury to Michael Clarke meant that Phillip was selected in Australia’s next squad, with the World Cup on the horizon—took a blow to the head on 63 not out from a vicious Sean Abbott bouncer, which caused him to collapse face-first onto the ground. Immediately, he was surrounded by concerned players and was very quickly rushed off to hospital.
All connected with cricket the world over showed their support; how many expected the blow to be fatal, I do not know. However, two days later, it was announced that Phil Hughes was dead. Instantly, cricket fell into mourning. Michael Clarke released an emotional statement to the press which, if you haven’t already, must be watched. Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, paid his own tribute to the tragic youngster, and myriad other figures in cricket, including the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne, had their own eulogies to make.
I remember when I first came across Phil Hughes. It was during the 2009 Ashes series, and this swashbuckling youngster, with an eye-catching style of play to say the least, was not enjoying the greatest of form at the time. The England bowlers tried to exploit his unorthodox style with plenty of short-pitched bowling, and Hughes struggled to make runs and was eventually dropped. Though he had flattered to deceive in that series, I remember looking him up on Cricinfo during a lunch break in order to kill time, and found that his statistics were in the same ballpark as Sir Don Bradman.
I shan’t go too far into the details of his career stats, as many other websites have all the information one could ever need, and this is a tribute to a great man’s life, not numbers, but two of these statistics on Cricinfo which caught my in particular were: his 115 and 160 against South Africa in 2009 made him the youngest ever scorer of twin hundreds in a match, and his tally of 3882 First-Class runs after forty matches could only be bettered by Don Bradman in Australian cricket.
The sheer number of tributes being paid by everyone on social media was very touching, and what was great to see was that in every newspaper I picked up, every tweet from a team-mate I saw, though some were lauding the entertainment value of his career, the vast majority were talking about what a wonderful human being he was. It was obvious when watching him play that he was a sublime talent with much ahead of him in his career, making it all the more tragic that it was cut so short, but one cannot tell what one’s sporting heroes are like off the pitch. However, it is clear from all these tributes that Hughes was a charming, humble man whom anyone would’ve been lucky to know.
I saw a lovely tweet imagining Phil going up to heaven and out to bat with Don Bradman, with Tony Greig commentating, and I will continue to imagine the innings they are putting on together for a long time yet. However, down on earth at least, Hughes remains 63 not out and will do so forever. What’s even more frustrating is that we didn’t get to see him continue to build what was already a great innings in its entirety. However, Phil died doing something he loved, and his life was one to be celebrated forever.
Phillip Hughes: 63 not out forever.
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