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With the hardest day of their lives now over, it’s now time for the Australian cricket team to focus on the opening Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India starting next Tuesday.
Sporting royalty, ranging from former Australian Test captain Ricky Ponting to South Sydney Rabbitohs premiership player Greg Inglis, packed the small coastal town of Macksville on Wednesday to farewell Test cricketer Phillip Hughes after the 25-year old was felled by a bouncer during a Sheffield Shield match last Tuesday.
Michael Clarke’s leadership was again on show, delivering his third heartbreaking speech in the last week about the man who was loved, respected and trusted by his teammates.
“We must dig in and get through to tea, and we must play on,” Clarke’s words will inspire the Aussies as they seek to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy from India starting with next week’s first Test which will now be played in Adelaide.
It will be the first Test series between the two countries since March last year, when the Australians were rocked by the infamous ‘homeworkgate’ scandal, and the first on Australian soil since Ponting and Clarke masterminded a 4-0 clean sweep in 2011-12.
The first Test at the Adelaide Oval next week promises to be an emotional one, given Hughes moved to the City of Churches midway through 2012 after he was dropped following the tied Test series against New Zealand.
It was his move to the South Australian capital which coincided with a return to form in the Sheffield Shield, seeing him return to the Test side following the retirement of Ricky Ponting.
The fourth and final Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground will be just as emotional, as it was the ground where Hughes suffered his fateful injury.
It was also the ground where he played most of his domestic cricket for the Blues before his aforementioned move to South Australia in 2012.
That Test has been rescheduled for the dates of January 6-10. It was where, on Wednesday, fans gathered not just to watch the funeral on its big screen, but also where 63 bats were placed in the middle of the pitch, each bat representing a run scored by Hughes in his final, unbeaten innings.
Rather than being retired hurt, the scoreboard was amended such that it would show “Phillip Hughes – 63 not out”, with the word “forever” being included at the end in his memory.
It was revealed shortly after his death that Hughes had won a recall to the Australian Test side, to replace the injured Michael Clarke who ruled himself out of the Gabba Test, which would have started this week.
It would have been his first Test since being dropped midway through the Ashes series in England last year.
Former Test captain and Channel Nine commentator Mark Taylor has said that playing the first Test will allow the players to move on, though a few of them are still considering their options given what has unfolded in the last week.
Ryan Harris has pondered withdrawing from the first Test, still heartbroken over losing his mate, while Michael Clarke remains subject to a fitness test after originally ruling himself out of the now-rescheduled Gabba Test.
For the Indians, captain MS Dhoni appears certain to play in the first Test after arriving in Adelaide overnight, having originally withdrawn from the Brisbane Test which has been rescheduled to the dates of December 17-21.
It will be interesting to see how India approach the upcoming Test series, as they too would have been affected by the death of Phillip Hughes. A few of their players actually attended his funeral on Wednesday.
Their primary focus will be attempting to defend the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which they won in March last year, and they’ll have to defy history to do so, having never won a Test series in Australia and not even a Test match Down Under since 2008.
Their most recent Test series ended in a humiliating 3-1 loss to England in July-August, however they won the recent one-day series against Sri Lanka last month 5-0.
As the saying goes, the show must go on – and it will. Can the Australian team resume normal duties and get back to playing cricket? And in particular, how will the players approach the first and fourth Tests in Adelaide and Sydney respectively?
Only time will tell.
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