A tragic death

The tragic death of young Australian Test cricketer Phillip Hughes has truly shaken the cricketing fraternity. The 25-year-old was felled by a bouncer bowled by fast bowler Sean Abbott in an Australian domestic encounter that saw Hughes collapsing on the pitch and despite later being operated upon, the youngster passed away on November 27. Hughes enjoyed a stop-start career, shining immediately after entering Test cricket in 2009 and becoming the youngest batsman ever to score centuries in each innings of a Test match. However, he soon lost his place in the Australian team and struggled to regain it although there was plenty of evidence to suggest that he still had a bright future ahead of him.

Hughes’s death puts the aggressive, no-holds-barred style of modern cricket into perspective. There is arguably no better sight in the sport than to see a fast bowler coming of a long run-up, with the roar of the crowd behind him, delivering a fearsome bouncer that whizzes past the batsman. However, it is entirely possible that batsmen from now on might feel just a bit more vulnerable facing fast-bowling, knowing that a cricket ball can actually cause death. It also remains to be seen whether fast bowlers resort to short-pitched bowling as freely as they do right now. Here there is a need to realise that Hughes met with what has been described as a “freakish accident”, hardly ever recorded before as the result of being struck by a cricket ball. Players need not restrain their natural style of play as a result of this tragedy. But what they do need to curb is the downright hostility that we often see between top teams, which was on display during the last Ashes series and on India’s tour of England this year. Cricket needs to be treated for what it is: a game that must be enjoyed by players and fans alike, and not a gladiatorial contest that it too often boils down to. Hughes, at his best, batted with exuberance and gay abandon. The cricketing fraternity will do well to remember that this is perhaps, the best way to play the sport.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2014.

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