Cricket - Phil Hughes

[road2ruin]

Terrible news and thoughts are very much with Phil's family, as has been mentioned no one really expects to step onto any sporting field/arena and not come back.

I hope that Sean Abbott is given full support by Cricket Australia as he's going to be in a very bad place at the moment. I went through something very similar although roles were reversed. I was batting against a very quick bowler, drove a ball straight back at him and with his follow through he never had time to get his hands in the way to stop the ball. Without going into detail it was pretty horrible and we had to get an air ambulance to get him rushed to a hospital with specialist support. He spent 5 days in a medically induced coma whilst they reduced the pressure on his brain and those days were the longest of my life.

I'm pleased to say that he made a full recovery however it could have been very different.

 

[NorfolkShaun]

Very sad news to wake up to RIP Phillip. My thoughts are with his family

Also really feel for Abbott in this and as mentioned hope he is getting all the support he needs.

 

[Dan2501]

RIP Phil. Such sad news, a seriously talented cricketer taken away at such a young age. Have to feel for Sean Abbott too, god knows what he's going through atm. My thoughts go out to Phil's friends and family, as well as Sean Abbott's.

 

[CheltenhamHacker]

Only 25, very sad indeed. They should think about a rule redesign as well at least until new helmets are brought in.

No rule will ever prevent tragedies like this unfortunately.

 

[Piece]

Terrible news and thoughts are very much with Phil's family, as has been mentioned no one really expects to step onto any sporting field/arena and not come back.

I hope that Sean Abbott is given full support by Cricket Australia as he's going to be in a very bad place at the moment. I went through something very similar although roles were reversed. I was batting against a very quick bowler, drove a ball straight back at him and with his follow through he never had time to get his hands in the way to stop the ball. Without going into detail it was pretty horrible and we had to get an air ambulance to get him rushed to a hospital with specialist support. He spent 5 days in a medically induced coma whilst they reduced the pressure on his brain and those days were the longest of my life.

I'm pleased to say that he made a full recovery however it could have been very different.

Jeez. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Snelly]

Desperately sad.

There is only one previous instance of this specific injury happening in the history of cricket. Just a tragic accident and horrendous for all concerned.

 

[Loz1607]

Very Very sad.

I Played a good standard of amateur cricket in my time with a few 80+mph bowlers in the league and never scared of getting in line and hooking or pulling, sometimes without a lid. Brings it home as to how it could have happened to anyone I played with and against at some point.

Apparently the type of bleed has only been reported 100 times so a very rare occurence despite very tragic. I hope no knee jerk reactions will happen to changing the rules of bouncers, as I am sure even the Hughes friends and family wouldnt want to see the game changed as a result. I think naturally people will think twice about bowling them in the short term anyhow.

Thoughts to the bowler Sean Abbott too as he apparently came through the same youth set up with Phil Hughes and from pictures and reports I have seen, he is as expected distrort.

I though Micheal Clarke showed incredible courage to face the media with his statement on behalf of the family, given that him and Hughes are best friends

 

[Tongo]

Very Very sad.

I Played a good standard of amateur cricket in my time with a few 80+mph bowlers in the league and never scared of getting in line and hooking or pulling, sometimes without a lid. Brings it home as to how it could have happened to anyone I played with and against at some point.

Apparently the type of bleed has only been reported 100 times so a very rare occurence despite very tragic. I hope no knee jerk reactions will happen to changing the rules of bouncers, as I am sure even the Hughes friends and family wouldnt want to see the game changed as a result. I think naturally people will think twice about bowling them in the short term anyhow.

Thoughts to the bowler Sean Abbott too as he apparently came through the same youth set up with Phil Hughes and from pictures and reports I have seen, he is as expected distrort.

I though Micheal Clarke showed incredible courage to face the media with his statement on behalf of the family, given that him and Hughes are best friends

Yep. As a skipper you expect to have to make tough decisions etc but nothing of that nature. Fair play to him.

 

[fundy]

so sad, RIP Phil Hughes

 

[Lord Tyrion]

You don't change rules because of one freak accident. Helmets are very good but I am sure they will look at tapes of the incident to see if anything can be done. However, you do need free range of movement, it is not like an F1 helmet, so you may have to put it down to just a freak incident. Very sad.

 

[Loz1607]

Every single fast bowler will try and pin a batsman if he gets the chance. You see a weakness and you exploit it. If a batsman is poor off the back foot or looks a bit out of nick, you get it in short and try and rough them up. If I hit someone then of course I check if they're okay and sometimes they weren't.

What would you have me do? Bowl nice half volleys for them to clobber to the boundary?

As a batsman, I would agree with you. Use to love a good fast short ball contest, nothing better than rocking on to the back foot and knocking a quickie in front of square for 6

I hope this type of contest isnt taken away as a result of this freak tradgedy

 

[CMAC]

terribly sad that the sport he loved took his life. So young too. Theres no justice in life!!

 

[chrisd]

No one should die playing cricket, it's a very sad day

 

[Billysboots]

As a sports fan in general and former club league cricketer I have to say this is an extremely sad day. My heart goes out to all who knew Phil Hughes, and also to Sean Abbott, who must be in a truly dreadful place today.

I have to say I agree when I say I hope there is no knee jerk reaction and rule change as a result of this awful tragedy. I'm quite sure that Phil Hughes himself would not want to see the challenge between batsman and bowler tinkered with because of what appears to be a freak happening.

I always recall many years a go, as an opening bowler myself, digging one in short and hitting an opposition batsman a glancing blow on the head. He went down like a felled oak but fortunately was okay - merely dazed and grazed. In the worst piece of club captaincy I saw through all my playing days our skipper took me off at the conclusion of the over, and said batsman went on to score a ton.

Over a pint afterwards he told me I would have got his wicket with the next straight full delivery I bowled because he was that unnerved, but he was really angered that the battle between us had been stopped, not by one of us, but by a captain who failed to recognise the challenge between batter and bowler.

That's the nature of the sport, and one I'm sure Hughes himself would not want to see changing. It's the game he grew up loving and played at the highest level. A tragedy that it led to his death, but I'm sure he would not want to see the rules torn up as a result.

 

[richart]

Dreadful news. I did think Shane Warne's comment that 'he was a really good man, one of the good guys', summed up Phillip Hughes perfectly.

Thoughts go out to his family and friends, and to Sean Abbott.

 

[sawtooth]

I always recall many years a go, as an opening bowler myself, digging one in short and hitting an opposition batsman a glancing blow on the head. He went down like a felled oak but fortunately was okay - merely dazed and grazed. In the worst piece of club captaincy I saw through all my playing days our skipper took me off at the conclusion of the over, and said batsman went on to score a ton.

Why? Because he put the welfare of an opponent first? What if he kept you on and you hurled another one at his head and this time it seriously injured the batsman?

Sounds like a good decision to me.

Disclaimer: I have never played cricket on any serious level so if thats normal then so be it. From an outsider looking in, I dont get that side of the game. I thought the objective was to hit the stumps not the man.

 

[Billysboots]

Why? Because he put the welfare of an opponent first? What if he kept you on and you hurled another one at his head and this time it seriously injured the batsman?

Sounds like a good decision to me.

Disclaimer: I have never played cricket on any serious level so if thats normal then so be it. From an outsider looking in, I dont get that side of the game. I thought the objective was to hit the stumps not the man.

But every batsmen accepts and understands that a bowler being hostile is part of the contest, the same as an aggressive batsman tries to spread a field that's crowding him by playing attacking shots. Close fielders are as likely to get hurt by surrounding the bat, but it's part of the contest.

In my scenario, that batsman was just as likely to have been injured by the bowler who replaced me. The fact is that by being hostile I had gained a position of advantage and our captain relinquished it two balls later.

If only bowling was as simple as merely trying to hit the stumps. It isn't, and a degree of hostility is accepted, and indeed expected by batsmen, as being part and parcel of a good bowler's tactics. No bowler ever sets out to injure a batter, and similarly no batter sets out to injure a close fielder. But you can't completely eradicate the risk that injuries will occur.

Nobody I'm sure ever wants to get to the point where a bowler is obliged to serve up a juicy selection of half volleys and long hops for a batsman to despatch as he sees fit. It would cease to become a sport. And I'm quite sure that the challenge of bat versus ball is what attracted Phil Hughes to play at the highest level to begin with.

An absolute tragedy, and one which has upset me enormously. But I'm quite sure the last thing Hughes would have wanted would have been for his legacy to be a sport he himself would not have recognised as the ultimate challenge.

 

[Tongo]

One year on from the sad passing of Phillip Hughes.

 

[delc]

When I played cricket, I was a slow leg spin bowler, so very unlikely to kill a batsman! There are other ways of getting them out. As a batsman I quite liked bouncers as you could often hook them for six.