WHEN GRIEF TURNS TOXIC
PHILLIP Hughes was so immune to sledging on the day he announced himself as a Test cricket prodigy, South Africa’s frustrated bowlers could only ask themselves, “Is he deaf?”.
Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Makhaya Ntini – three of the most lethal fast bowlers of the modern era – versus a 20year-old wet-behind-the-ears rookie from country NSW who, they reckoned, had a weakness to short-pitched deliveries.
On a Durban wicket described as “green mamba”, this was cricket at its most hostile and Hughes was right in the thick of it.
As if the volatile bowling speeds and trajectory weren’t intimidating enough, the verbal abuse was so intense that Australia’s skipper Ricky Ponting thought at one point he’d better play policeman. But when he got to the other end of the pitch he found his plucky opener and batting partner grinning broadly and exclaiming, “How good’s this!”.
Hughes made 160 in this momentous innings, his highest Test score. Two days earlier, in the first innings, he made 115.
In the Hughes biography written by Peter Lalor and Malcolm Knox, former Test opener Justin Langer described this performance in March 2009 as a batting masterclass of “Muhammad Ali” proportions.
Asked to analyse criticisms of Hughes’s footwork against the short stuff, all-time great Greg Chappell likened it to: “The way Bradman countered Bodyline.”
Five-and-a-half years later, the trauma of Hughes dying at the crease surrounded by his mates is undoubtedly the most upsetting tragedy ever encountered in Australian sport.
Sadly, this week’s coronial inquest has not only revisited that devastation, but exacerbated it. The outpouring of grief
from that awful day at the SCG in November 2014 has not abated, and now there are the more disturbing emotions of anger and animosity.
It’s resulted in one question and one question only. Why?
At the centre of the hurt is the Hughes family’s belief that their son was targeted with short bowling and verbal abuse.
If only Hughes’s back-toback Test hundreds in Durban could have been tendered as evidence. They would have provided the context sorely lacking in proceedings that descended into a poisonous war of words. The bottom line is that Hughes was one of the most accomplished batsmen in the country. “A genius”, as personal coach Neil D’Costa described him. Even if NSW quick Doug Bollinger did utter the words, “I’m going to kill you”, in his general direction, and even if there were plans based around banging the ball in short, would Hughes – 63 not out and on his way to a Test recall – have even batted an eyelid? We’ll never know for sure. But history would suggest almost definitely not. What occurred at the SCG on November 25 almost two years ago is unlike anything that’s ever been witnessed on a professional cricket field.
An examination into what took place needed to understand that what happened until Hughes was struck was just like any other game of cricket the 25-year-old had played in.
West Indian quick Malcolm Marshall reportedly once said to Australian batsman David Boon, “Now David, are you going to get out or am I going to have to come around the wicket and kill you?”.
This kind of empty rhetoric has been part of cricket for as long as it’s been played.
Counsel representing the Hughes family has tried to argue that an admission this was the case is all they were after. In other words, an acknowledgment from players that this was just like any other game – in the sense that there was lots of short stuff and sledging. Greg Melick, the Hughes family lawyer, argued that had Brad Haddin, David Warner, Tom Cooper and Bollinger been more reliable witnesses when they were called to the stand, he “would have had very little work to do in this inquest”.
But if the point was simply to prove that this was just a normal game of cricket, what was to be achieved by going down such aggressive and accusatory of questioning with the players
If it was agreed that happened was “normal couldn’t everyone have saved distress by excusing players from taking the stand?
However, the decision make them front the court nored the fact presented start of hearing that this a shocking and unprevent accident.
In that spirit, the in stated it wasn’t about portioning blame.
Sadly, the opposite pression was given from outset. Now the raw wound that have been opened up week may never be healed with Bollinger and Cooper most vulnerable.
At Hughes’s funeral years ago, the family and crick community stood shoulder
His eyes went funny and I heard a groan. He fell face first and did not protect himself BRAD HADDIN