How three small words unravelled the Hughes inquest

"Nature of play" sounds like a pretty harmless phrase. But for all those involved in the inquest into the death of Phillip Hughes it has taken on a sinister quality none will ever forget.

It was these words that caused the New South Wales coronial inquest to veer into truly awful territory at Sydney's Downing Centre court complex this week, pitting cricketers against one another and causing the Hughes family to bitterly decry the conclusion of a process that had started out with faint traces of optimism.

Before the inquest began on Monday, the family's representative, James Henderson, stated that they hoped "perhaps there will be a positive that comes out of Phillip's death". That may be, but this week has not felt like it.

When the inquest began with an opening statement by the New South Wales coroner, Michael Barnes QC, he stated that proceedings were not about "apportioning blame". That may have been the intention, but this week has not felt like it.

Mainly because of those three words, "nature of play". Cricket Australia's own investigation of Hughes' death, conducted by David Curtain QC, had carefully outlined terms of reference that did not include issues surrounding the laws of the game nor how it was played on the day Hughes was hit. It had been generally understood that this was the most tragic of accidents, in a game where the hardness of the cricket ball will always necessitate some risk.

Sean Abbott, the unfortunate man to bowl the ball that struck Hughes, had concluded exactly that in his statement to the inquest: "I know there is a suggestion that the laws of the game be changed so that bouncers should not be bowled, but the same cricket ball will be hit and flying around whether bouncers are bowled or not. There will always be risks in the game."

Yet the inclusion of reference to the nature of play in the brief outlined by the coroner opened up what has been repeatedly called a Pandora's Box. Inquests, of course, are devised to determine what remedies may be applied to prevent similar deaths in future, and the coroner is obliged to investigate thoroughly and fully. This most high-profile of inquests was set on the path it took this week from the moment the family questioned how the game had been played, creating - in the words of Greg Hughes - an "unsafe workplace" for his son.

The Hughes family's concerns about the number of bouncers their son faced that day were linked to their apparent disgust at some of the sledging allegedly directed at him, namely the threat of "I'll kill you" supposedly uttered by Doug Bollinger. All tumbled out at the inquest.

What followed was one of the most vexing episodes witnessed in Australian cricket. Convened ostensibly to try to establish how to make the game and its players safer, the inquest instead turned into the most painful and hurtful dredging through the past imaginable. Very little was witnessed in terms of discernible benefits or remedies beyond those already recommended at the start of the week by Kristina Stern SC, counsel assisting the coroner.

Instead, players and officials were subjected to cross-examination that at times stretched the bounds of credulity. Crude links were drawn between cricket tactics, verbal exchanges and the freak blow to the side of the neck, from a short ball in a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG on November 25, 2014, that resulted in the arterial injury leading to Hughes' death two days later in St Vincent's Hospital.

So it was that Brad Haddin, captain of New South Wales on the day, had the ethics of his tactics questioned. So it was that Bollinger, exemplar of the angry fast bowler, was asked to justify why he bowled and spoke the way he has always done. So it was that David Warner, who sat at Hughes' side as medical staff tried frantically to get him breathing, was questioned on sledging. And so it was that Tom Cooper, Hughes' batting partner that day, housemate, and close friend, was made to feel in some way responsible for not stepping in to prevent the events that unfolded.

For Cooper, it was a particularly cruel experience. At the SCG wake that followed Hughes' death he had spoken to Jason, Hughes' brother, at a time when all may have been a blur. A few days later, Cooper was a pallbearer at the funeral, in Macksville. Yet a little less than two years later he was being accused of relaying Bollinger's sledges to Jason Hughes, his evidence pitted against the late submission of another pallbearer, the Mosman club captain Matthew Day.

All this seemed at best peripheral to events on the day Hughes was hit, and at worst a sickening re-traumatisation of the players involved. There is a compelling argument to be made that none of the players should have been asked to appear at the inquest at all.

Haddin, Bollinger, Warner, Cooper and Abbott had already delivered statements based on interviews with Stern and CA counsel. Once the officiating umpires, Mike Graham-Smith and Ash Barrow, plus the long-time international umpire and ICC training manager Simon Taufel, had all stated to the inquest that they did not consider the nature of play to be outside the laws of the game, the players' testimony was irrelevant, other than to heighten the visibility and drama of the inquest.

Others were drawn into questions that seemed a long way from relevant. The former New South Wales administrator Donna Anderson found herself being asked about instances of sledging in Sheffield Shield matches, despite never having taken the field as either a player or an umpire. The CA head of sports science, Alex Kountouris, was heavily questioned regarding an internal report he had prepared on the incident.

At the same time the media covering the inquest found themselves reliving the same problems that arose in the hours and days after Hughes was hit. Issues of appropriate and sensitive coverage of such cases, that lie at the juncture of sport, police rounds and court proceedings, have tested the limits of reporters, editors, cameramen and photographers. Numerous players are known to have checked out of following all media this week, with good reason.

There were some recommendations that can be viewed as constructive pending their inclusion in Barnes' findings, to be released on November 4. Players and umpires may find themselves being subject to mandatory first-aid training, and clearer communication between participants on the field and medical staff off it may save critical minutes in the moments after any instance of serious injury. And the wording of laws relating to the use of short-pitched bowling is likely to be revisited on Taufel's recommendation.

Yet none of these findings would have been any different had none of the players been asked to speak at the inquest. Nor would they have changed much at all if matters of sledging and team plans had not been probed with considerable thrust by Greg Melick SC, the Hughes family's legal representative and a former special investigator for CA. Melick represented his clients with zest, left with little choice but to pursue the lines opened by the coroner's brief.

The overwhelming sense around the Hughes inquest this week is that it has been an enormous amount of pain and conflict for very little additional benefit. At its centre has been a grieving family, their suffering no less vivid than it was in the days following the ball that fatefully struck Phillip Hughes on the side of the neck. All that was brought horribly home by the sight of Greg, Virginia and Megan Hughes making abrupt exits on the final day of the inquest, in the midst of a closing submission by CA's legal counsel, Bruce Hodgkinson.

There had been talk, whispered in quiet corners, of a gulf between the Hughes family and the cricket community. Now that talk has been replaced by awful and very public reality, of the sort that leaves any chance of resolution and peace further away than ever. Largely because of three small words.