A month of reflection and flashbacks

It's Christmas Day on Thursday. December 25. One month to the day since Phillip Hughes was struck by a bouncer at the SCG. Cricket has continued, life has gone on for his team-mates. Bouncers are bowled, hook shots are played. There is a guise of normality. But the emotions are never far from the surface. The shock has eased, will lessen further. It will never go away. For now, the pain of his death is still raw.

When Shane Watson was hit by a bouncer in the MCG nets on Tuesday, the collective reaction said it all. Watson and the bowler James Pattinson were both visibly shaken. They left the nets soon after. Watson was not really hurt. But he was very rattled. Watson was one of the New South Wales players who was first on the scene when Hughes was felled in the Sheffield Shield game.

When the first bouncer was bowled by Varun Aaron in the Adelaide Test, it felt like a milestone moment. Cricket could carry on. Fast bowlers from both teams went on bowling bumpers throughout the first two Tests. Short balls were ducked, hooked, fended, took wickets. But there have been flashbacks to the tragedy.

As much as the players want to play their normal way, it is always there, that little doubt. Mitchell Johnson was fearsome in the home Ashes last summer. England's batsmen were, at times, obviously frightened of him. But after Hughes' death, Johnson initially had trouble convincing himself to bowl bouncers again. Especially to his team-mates.

"I had been [reluctant] in training," Johnson said on Tuesday. "I definitely wasn't too keen on bowling it in training. But I've been able to move on from that and play the way I wanted to play. I've bowled a couple [at training, now]."

Johnson's comments came before Watson was struck by Pattinson. It is little wonder Pattinson was shaken by the experience in the nets; Johnson too had been visibly worried when his bouncer hit Virat Kohli on the helmet during the Adelaide Test. Johnson was the first to check on Kohli's well-being; most of his team-mates were quickly on the scene as well. Emotions ran high.

"I did hear somewhere that we all over-reacted and carried on," Johnson said. "But that was just a normal reaction. That was just how I felt. It was just an emotional sort of feeling. It was the first time that I'd struck someone in the helmet [since Hughes died] and that was just a normal reaction by me.

"I was able to move on from that - not straight away. But as the Test series has gone on we've seen that aggression come back into the game and that's what works best for me, bowling aggressive and getting up their guys."

It is not just batsmen and bowlers who have had the death of Hughes in the back of their minds. Chris Rogers was clearly unsettled by an incident on the first day at the Gabba, when he was fielding at short leg while Nathan Lyon was bowling. Rohit Sharma pulled, Rogers spun around to protect himself and was hit in the back of the helmet.

The 20-year-old Marnus Labuschagne fielded at short leg for most of the rest of the match, on as a substitute for the injured Mitchell Marsh. Labuschagne is a short-leg specialist. Asked at the MCG on Tuesday whether he would expect to field in close again or might encourage the debutant Joe Burns to take the job, Rogers was initially a little jokey.

"I'll be pushing for the young fellow to get in there," Rogers said. "As you saw from my technique I'm probably not the bravest in there. But it's one of those necessary rules. You have to get in there but preferably I don't want to be in there if I don't have to."

When it happened, nothing could hide the fact that Rogers was genuinely rattled. The team doctor Peter Brukner ran on to the field to check on Rogers, who kept turning his back on the doctor, unwilling to look him in the eye.

It was as if Rogers thought denial was his best mental defence, pretending it hadn't happened, pretending he wasn't in fear of his life, pretending that he wasn't flashing back to his former Test team-mate Hughes. But such thoughts were precisely what went through Rogers' mind. He was, in a word, upset.

"You get hit in the head and with everything that has happened recently it's probably two inches from where Phil got hit," Rogers said. "A lot of things go through your mind. At 37 fielding at short leg you're thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?'

"It was interesting times. The team asks you to get in there so you do. And then when you take a knock like that it's a little bit confronting. I was a little bit upset at the time and didn't really want to speak to anyone, as you might have seen."

Of course, anyone would be upset in a similar situation. Pattinson was in the nets on Tuesday. Watson was shaken. Johnson's raw emotions kicked in when he struck Kohli. Every such blow now has the "what-if" factor about it. What if it was two inches that way? What if he turned his head in the other direction?

Training continued in the nets after Watson was hit. The cricket will continue on Boxing Day. Australia are 2-0 up over India. They have come together bravely over the past month, carried on as normally as they could. But, naturally, Australian cricket remains in a state of latent shock. For this group of Hughes' friends and team-mates, the what-ifs will never really go away.