Hughes and the family of cricket
02-Dec-2014
Phillip Hughes' death has caused a worldwide outpouring of grief from cricket fans, all of whom have all felt a personal sense of loss whether they knew Hughes or not. Writing in Buzzfeed, Alan White reflects on cricket's ability to bring vastly different cultures together.
Whenever a sport suffers a tragedy, the journalists who cover it often write certain truisms - they point out that sport is only a game, that things have been "put into perspective"; above all, that perhaps spectators and opponents should show a little more respect to each other. It's clichéd, this type of piece, and perhaps it's clichéd for a reason - there's nothing fundamentally wrong with any of these points.
But such pieces have been thinner on the ground in the aftermath of Hughes' death, because, as anyone who's played the game for long enough knows, cricket fans aren't really in need of these reminders. A few days ago I wrote a blog about what Hughes meant to England fans, and I realised that all of us - wherever we were - felt much the same. We'd lost one of our own.
You see, it really is a family. In England alone in the last few years I've played with and against Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Australians, New Zealanders, West Indians, South Africans, Afghans, Nigerians, Slovenians, and more. I now count many of them among my best friends. I've gone to Corfu and had my finger broken by a Pakistani bowler. I've had sixes hit off my bowling by an Italian-South African in the Channel Islands. I've gawped at games in Croatia, Sri Lanka, Barbados, and France. Much of this cricket has been social, and that means bonhomie is encouraged before, during, and after the game. But even in league cricket there's generally a clear sense of mutual appreciation between the teams, at least once hostilities end.
In The West Australian, Simon Katich, Hughes' first Test-match opening partner, recounts some of his favourite memories of his 'smiling mate Luigi'.
In the old days, he would have done his time at short leg and even though he was built for short leg, he was smart enough to be that bad at it we got him out of there. He even managed to avoid doing it when he came into the Aussie team in 2009 in South Africa.
I'll never forget playing our tour match at Potchefstroom and thinking that with Hughesy likely to make his debut, I would finally be able to hand over the short leg shin pads to him. When I was told by Punter (Ricky Ponting) that that would not be happening, the little bugger laughed his head off, knowing my old back was going to be stiff from more days of squatting down while he could sit back and enjoy the show.
Only Hughesy could've got away with that and he would always tell Punter how good I was in there just to really make sure he was safe from the dreaded job.
The former NSW wicketkeeper Daniel Smith pays tribute to Hughes in the Sydney Morning Herald, remembering him as a 'lovable, infectious character' with a dozen nicknames.
Simple things were what you loved and no, I'm not taking the piss out of you. it's true. You were street smart. So street bloody smart that after moving to Sydney and, upon becoming my little brother, it took me 18 months to realise how street smart you were. Half-way through one of our lord-knows-how-many nights out after I'd shouted a round BANG, I caught you, your sneaky little hand grabbing the coins meant for the barmaid from off the tip tray.
"What are you doing, Bra?" I said. He looked at me half cheekily and grinned with the glint in his eye, the other half a youngster who'd just been busted . . . sprung . . . with his hand in the cookie jar.
He quickly replied to me: "Sorry, but that's milk and bread."
We laughed and carried on.