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Our hearts break for Phil Hughes

27th November, 2014
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Phil Hughes: 1988-2014. (AAP Image/Chris Crerar)
Expert
27th November, 2014
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Why has the death of Phil Hughes affected all of us so? The grief is so raw, so palpable, so real.

99.9 per cent of the people who have been emotionally overcome never got the chance to meet him. Fewer still will have truly known him. From everything we hear, the ones who did count themselves lucky.

»Phil Hughes’ career in pictures
»STORY: Phil Hughes passes away
Talking to a cricket-loving mate soon after the news came to hand, his overriding sadness was because the cause of death was in the act of simply playing cricket, the way thousands do every week.

It’s just not supposed to happen that way.

His mind wandered back to the day in the thirds, a decade or so ago, that he broke his nose when too early on a pull shot. I happened to be on the opposing team that day, fielding at cover point.

I can still see the ball hitting him. How many laughs we’ve had about it in the years since. How different it could have been.

He will no doubt watch his son play cricket at some point in the future years. Perhaps he’ll see him take his eye off a short ball, or miss one, and also get hit, as every cricketer has at some point, like Daniel Brettig explained to us on CricInfo.

How can we not think of Phil Hughes’ parents in a time like this?

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In the three years I’ve been a parent, I find myself struggling to keep emotions at bay when certain tragedies strike, particularly when someone has been taken too young. Even when it’s an adult, all I can think about is their mum and dad, and wonder that person was like when they were the age of my kids.

How innocent and fun-loving the child. How bursting with pride the parents would have been.

My son wasn’t even two years old last summer when he took to signalling four like an umpire whenever a boundary was hit on TV. Not long after, he started taking guard himself with the inner cardboard from a finished roll of paper towels, tapping it on the floor as if on strike.

How many living rooms has this happened in? How many more still to come? How often did Phil Hughes, looking like the happiest boy in the world, do the same? It’s just not fair. Damn.

Then I think about poor Sean Abbott, and it’s all I can do to not start crying.

I remember seeing his name at some point during the one-dayers against Pakistan last month, and wondering how is someone I’ve literally never heard of playing for Australia. And now we keeping seeing and hearing his name all too often, under the worst possible circumstances.

For this to happen to any bowler and any batsman, at any grade, anywhere in the world, would be tragic enough. But it happened in our backyard. They were Australian teammates only seven weeks earlier.

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There is a photo of them in Australian colours together, celebrating a wicket, as mates. How happy they look. How promising both of their futures were. We can imagine that they might have played a lot of cricket together.

How poignant the next photo we saw of the two them, Abbott tenderly holding the head of an unconscious Hughes on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. How can we look at it and not be filled with unbearable sadness? It’s an image that will linger.

Everyone that speaks to Sean about this incident will be at pains to stress what we all know, that it wasn’t his fault. He will know this to be a fact when thinking intellectually, but how long will it take him to reconcile it emotionally? Just try to put yourself in his shoes.

It’s hard to see a scenario where he doesn’t break down at the top of his mark the next time he takes to the field with ball in hand. How we all feel for his devastation.

For me personally, I can’t help but think about the injustice of Hughes’ Test career, which was the focus of some posts on Twitter.

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I can see where he’s coming from, to the extent that for me, it’s not trivial, but an underlying reason why it hurts so much.

There were many of us who felt his career was one continuing injustice. He seemed to get less Tests than others to prove himself. Was always the first one dropped, often unluckily, many times when he looked like he might just turn the corner.

There was a feeling that eventually it would turn around. All of the hard years and bad breaks would be worth it. Surely there was light at the end of the tunnel, and when he reached it, he would never look back.

And now that light has been ripped away from him. From us. It hurts.

We all felt we knew Phil Hughes. He burst on the scene so young, so vibrantly, so successfully. Greatness seemed the natural course.

Ever since then, he has been news. If he was in the side he was news. If he was out of the side he was news. A new technique here. A fresh mindset there. A change of state. A change of position. Opener. First drop. Down the order.

And during it all, nothing but genuine warmth and a wonderful spirit, according to all reports and those who knew him. The type of bloke who will have had many best mates.

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The tributes always flow about what a wonderful human being someone was, after tragedy strikes and they’ve been taken too early. With Hughes, they flowed from all corners while he was still alive. Family and friends can at least take some small comfort in that.

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