Cricketer Phillip Hughes dies after match accident

[marjamlew]

It's the lead item on Radio NZ News this evening. It's getting heaps of coverage here. We often get reports on Aussie sport from members of the Australian media and there's a special report tonight on Radio NZ on Hughes. Interestingly every month we also have some Brit reporting from Thailand on Thai sport news.

You wouldn't want to be the bowler of the fatal ball.

Yes GT. The young fella who was bowling was Sean Abbot. He recently made his 20-20 debut for Australia along with Phil Hughes in the middle east against Pakistan. The young fella must be feeling terrible but I'm sure the Australian cricket family will support him through what must be a very difficult time.

[Barney]

Good luck Hughsy, hope for a full recovery, love his style of batting when he is on fire. =D> Was in the mix to replace Clarke for the indian visit.

To add to my post I am now absolutely gutted to hear this of a good young bloke, never part of the sledging brigade. I truly loved his batting style as being different which some made out to be a problem. I always wanted him back in the team.

This reporter said it well

"......We knew we were watching something special".
He might not have been the most orthodox of batsmen but geez he was brave, talented, entertaining and very, very effective.
A lovely country kid with manners to match, Hughes was living his dream large.
It was only a matter of time before he landed a baggy green. Our 408th Test cricketer.
You felt gutted when his debut ended with a four-ball duck and exhilarated when he turned it around the next Test with tons in each innings.
There was further disappointment to come when he was axed from the Test side, four times in all.
Those who criticised his flamboyance and extravagance are the types who order sweet and sour pork every time they have Chinese.
He didn't turn dirty on the world. He simply went away and worked harder at his game, banking hundreds of runs so selectors could never delete him from their files.
Hughes should have been strolling out at the Gabba next Thursday. Instead, we are preparing for his funeral.
Vale Phillip Joel Hughes.

You were one of the genuine good ones.

[Aardvark]

No disrespect intended, but I can't understand the out pouring of grief for this Lad, as sad as it is. Flags around the Country are at half mast. Tributes on Radio and TV are every where. Today at work I asked the Guys "What was the name of the last Australian to lose his life in the defense of his Country in the middle east" Not one had an idea . FYI Todd John Chidgey, 29, a lance corporal from the 2nd Commando Regiment attached to Australian Defence Force Headquarters Kabul, died from a non-combat-related gunshot wound on 1 July 2014.[44] Here was a Man paid about a $1000.00 a week who Died in Defense of his Country. Phillip Hughes was probably paid more than that a day for playing a "Game" he loved. When we put sporting hero's ahead of real hero's we should stand back and have a good look at ourselves. JMO, but think people should think more clearly when choosing their Hero's ....

[GT93]

Yes, good points Aardvark. The word "hero" is often misused.

We had a very ugly domestic murder that got wide publicity in Auckland yesterday. It shifted the tragic Hughes death to the side very quickly. It was one of those horrific cases where the legal system just could not protect the ex-wife. She must have been living in terror for months.

I also heard a couple of journos on the radio discussing whether the reaction to the Hughes tragedy was over the top. I think the sports industry often loses perspective. Not just on this occasion.

[marjamlew]

I think it is in extremely bad taste and highly disrespectful and offensive to come onto a thread about the tragic death of a young cricketer and belittle the event. If you have a cause to champion you should, in all respect to the soldier, start another thread and not high-jack this one.

[GT93]

I disagree 100% marjamlew. Other cricketers die, fortunately rarely. If they're in a low grade we don't even hear about it. It's not disrespect. Just perspective. I think it's disrespectful to totally lose context. We need to be free to put death in context. It's always sad when a youngster dies. What might have been ... I don't mourn his cricket career, but more the missed opportunities for Hughes ...

I read on the internet about a 72 year old English umpire who died when a fielder threw a ball that struck the old chap's head. I bet he didn't get a big wig's funeral, massive media coverage and he probably gave the game heaps over his lifetime. He probably gave far more than the average first class cricketer. I'm not commenting on Hughes' individual contribution or what his future contribution might have been.

First class cricket and international cricket is about pressing buttons. These guys are entertainers and businessmen. We're being played (not by Hughes). I accept this death does press buttons. As a school kid I still remember Ewen Chatfield nearly dying. The talk was his heart had stopped and the English physio saved him. So Hughes' death is significant and memorable news. But I think Ardie is right. Sport is way too big on hyperbole.

I read in the latest Time magazine about the 6th Sierre Lione doctor to die from Ebola. Now in GT's book he's a hero. Facing 90 mile an hour bowling is brave but not heroic. And today it's not nearly as challenging as facing Harold Larwood. Perhaps the saddest part of this drama is the bowler, Abbott. But then he needs to be tough and just get on with it. The over the top soap opera doesn't help him. ---- happens. I hope Abbott ploughs on. I also hope the grief counsellors stay away from him as I understand there's now scientific evidence that they do more harm than good.

[JimboPSM]

There is a good article by Tom Fordyce, the Chief sports writer at BBC Sport, which tries to address this:

Phillip Hughes: Why does a death in sport hit us so hard?

Young men of 25 die every day - in crashed cars, on battlefields, in cancer wards.

When it happens in a sporting arena it is no more tragic, but its impact is both more universally felt and somehow far more shocking.

Elite sportsmen are our real-time superheroes, capable of physical wonders beyond the rest of us, seemingly unbound by many of the same biological constraints.

Watching them can make us feel immune to the real world. Sport becomes our great escape from its darker mortal realities, an alternative playground where the language is one of battles and great victories but from which everyone walks away to fight another day.

Its tragedies and losses aren't real, even if the hype would sometimes make you believe they were. So when the illusion shatters, as it has with the death of Australian batsman Phillip Hughes, it is utterly unexpected and difficult to accept.

We know there is danger in sport, in repeatedly ducking a hard ball bowled at 90 miles an hour or driving a twitching rocket of a Grand Prix car.

It is what fires much of our admiration. It also makes an accident like the one that killed Hughes, or that cost Ayrton Senna his life at San Marino in 1994, all the harder to comprehend.

These were ones who were supposed to be invulnerable to the odds, who could flourish where logic suggested it was impossible....


.... With their premature loss comes bewilderment. Hughes's final scorecard will forever read 63 not out: a lovely start, not enough, not yet.

Cricket, like all other sports, is rich in fables of the miracle comeback or improbable recovery.

Hughes himself had been involved in one of its most famous, when his 81 not out in a last-wicket partnership with teenage debutant Ashton Agar almost won his side an unfathomable victory in the first Ashes Test in the summer of 2013.

It conditions us to expect the same from its protagonists off the pitch. These men and women are fighters, used to taking on the odds, to cocking a snook at reason and precedent.

So it was that when news first broke of Hughes's collapse at the Sydney Cricket Ground, hope spread almost as quickly as the distress....

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/30236817

In my opinion the full article is well worth a read as it adds context, perspective and has links to other incidents.

[marjamlew]

Ok you have every right to disagree but start another thread and disagree there - maybe call it - Phil Hughes's Death - Who Gives a Rats?
To dismiss others feeling towards Hughes's death on a thread that first acknowledged the terrible accident and then lamented his passing is a disgrace. To compare it with other deaths and rank its relevance on the same thread is bizarre.
What sort of person enters a conversation on a thread honouring the passing of any person and argues the point?
I obviously don't get it.

[Aardvark]

You obviously don't lew. Had I started a new thread it would have looked like a deliberate attack on the lad, and that was not my intension.

[GT93]

Still disagree marjamlew. As Aardie says, it's not an attack on Hughes. I'm interested in looking at the reaction to his tragic death.

Your summary isn't accurate and is written to silence discussion on the reaction to Hughes' death. This is a good thread for the discussion. I think nearly all of us try to give death meaning in different ways. I think it isn't proper to silence a mature discussion on death here although you probably don't think it's mature. Context is relevant and always is with death.

The state would act to make military deaths lower key affairs than this one as it would undermine military objectives to make them as big. Cricket doesn't have that constraint. In fact it seems to benefit by blowing it up although I think it risks parents getting reluctant to have their sons playing.

Rugby union can't go this big on death. It is already hurt by parents fearful of their sons playing rugby union. Rugby union death publicity seems more similar to military death publicity although I suspect the death of a professional player would cause rugby union some conflict on how best to respond.

I suspect the families of lower grade cricketers or sports people who die wouldn't want the blow torch of publicity as is happening with Hughes. I hope the Hughes family are comfortable with it. If not, it adds to their difficulties.

Elite sport is a strange realm. Kind of removed from ordinary life for the rest of us yet at the same time many are glued to it. Almost a different planet.

That boxing death in the link was terrible: 44 answered punches. I suspect boxing didn't want to blow up that tragedy. I trust boxing got its act together after that death. Cricket appears to take player safety very importantly.

[marjamlew]

At the local cricket today. Proud of my club for the respect they showed =D>

[pomps]

The funeral,was watching part of it in a local restaurant today

[Aardvark]

Thank God it's over. Even Ex Prime Ministers don't get more than two days coverage