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We often hear about the supposed qualities of being Australian: an easy-going spirit, a tendency to side with the underdog, to rage against privilege. Apparently being a fair dinkum Aussie also involves raging against Phillip Hughes.
Like any national cliché, the first three characteristics are more of a national myth. Just as germane to popular behaviour in this country is a tendency to despise what we perceive as weakness, and to join with the crowd when it’s time to put the boot in.
It’s essentially animal behaviour: the tendency to beat down our weaker cousins to boost our place in the hierarchy, or to group together to separate out a hobbling animal from the herd.
The vitriol directed at Hughes for the crime of a) being in the national cricket team, and b) not doing as we might like while in the cricket team, has been considerable. Public media has been filled with more carp than the Murray River. Along the lines of Tilda Swinton, we’ve all felt we need to talk about Phillip.
With such opprobrium, you would think that Hughes was the one who had shot up a high school, when in fact all he’s done is fail to fire off enough Bill Lawry tracer bullets at the cover fence.
I don’t think it’s even the fact that Hughes gets out that is the problem. It’s that he looks bad in doing it. Yes, his bat is askew. His technique looks awry. More than that, he looks confused, he looks … weak.
And the sight of that weakness causes the animal rage to rise within us. It makes our nostrils flare with that first little hint of blood. Gather round, boys. Make sure you’re in the pack, or you might be the one who finds himself alone.
The obvious irony, of course, is that the prophecy self-fulfils. People attack Hughes for lacking confidence or looking ill-at-ease at the crease, then rip into him afresh when he posts a low score. The guy is 23. And while players claim to ignore the media, it’s never possible all the time.
Even a humble internet writer like your correspondent gets a regular diet of attacks, abuse, and even threats. Pure insult is easy to brush off. More difficult are those cases where someone has utterly misunderstood you, yet proceeds with the bombastic assumption that their misinterpretation is right.
That sense of injustice is far more pervasive and corrosive than any string of poorly-spelt profanity or CAPS LOCK typhoon.
And it is, I imagine, what Hughes must be feeling now. He was first dropped after five Tests while averaging 52. He came back for three matches last summer, in which the entire team was utterly pasted by England.
88 not out in a one-off in New Zealand was enough to get his ticket to Sri Lanka, where he made a strong 126 in hostile conditions. He didn’t go recklessly after the bowling – his final strike rate was under 60. It was a proper Test match innings. That was all of four Tests ago.
In his last start before Brisbane, Hughes made another 88 against South Africa on their home deck at Johannesburg against Morkel, Steyn, Kallis, and Tahir. It was one of only two good scores in that first innings, and set Australia up for a series-levelling win.
Yet his critics loudly claim that he’s out of form. If Hughes this summer made a hundred in Brisbane and 80-odd on Boxing Day, can you imagine people clamouring for him to be dropped for the SCG?
Of course, runs scored overseas are essentially meaningless here. Australia’s home summer and our Olympiad excursions to England are all that really counts. With the rest confined to pay TV, it’s a case of out of sight, out of any comprehension.
The biggest achievements of a cricketer’s career, be they scores on a green African seamer or wickets on an Indian dust track, pass most people by.
For now, Hughes is a work in progress. But works in progress are not helped if everyone yelps about the potential to fail every step of the way. He needs to be given time and space to find his way in the role he’s been given.
Maybe he won’t work out in the long term. Maybe he will. We never know these things without an adequate attempt. In the meantime, it would be great if everyone could stop bleating.
Ross Taylor, more out of vagueness than malice, had a dig at Hughes after the Gabba Test. “I’d love him to be in the team” for Hobart, said the Kiwi skipper.
Australian cricket scribes jumped on it as evidence that Hughes is hopeless, rather than an oblique statement that New Zealand had been happy to get him out cheaply.
It’s still worth pointing out that Hughes scored more runs and faced more balls than Taylor. It’s worth pointing out that he has three Test centuries, where Taylor’s top five scored 101 between them across two innings in Brisbane.
And it’s worth pointing out that at 23 years of age, he has top-scored in two of Australia’s last four Tests, to seal one series victory and to make a comeback for another series draw.
You’d love him to be in the team for Hobart, you say?
Good. So would I.
Follow Geoff on Twitter: @GeoffLemonSport