Phil Hughes' sad slip-up

“Sadly for Phil Hughes,” is what Tony Greig said upon Hughes’ latest push to the slips.

The word sadly is accurate, but there was no more sadness than Hughes walking off the ground. His face was a visual representation of someone saying, “Oh no, not again”. In his nightmares Hughes walks off just the same. On a day when batsmen left the ground more than usual, no one left with the look of more utter despair and pure hopelessness than Hughes. He was every puppy who’s ever seen his family leaving; you could practically hear the muffled whines. Even if you aren’t a believer in Hughes, and they are harder to find than current day Milli Vanilli fans, it’s not fun to see a cricketer that defeated.

The New Zealand slips cordon seemed to have more than 9 players in it, and they were salivating as Hughes faced Chris Martin. Luckily for everyone involved, it didn’t last long.

Before Hughes’ latest slip up, the public had already started to question why he was still there, and the press had all but inked his career eulogy. In a Melbourne newspaper, a letter to the editor suggested if Brad Hodge had been given as many chances as Hughes, he’d have made 10,000 Test runs by now. It’s cute, but far from accurate. And Hodge was ‘allegedly’ dropped because he has a weakness outside off stump. Of course, if he was in the same side as Hughes, no one would have noticed Hodge’s problem.

With Hughes, it isn’t a case of whether he has a problem outside off stump, he does (you won’t find any right-wing columnists who are Hughes outside-off stump deniers). It’s, why does Hughes have a weakness outside off stump? His last technique, where he played short balls like he didn’t know they existed, was ugly, and when he failed in two consecutive Tests, although very rarely to the short ball he so feared, he was dropped. Although in a strange twist, his major comeback was at the WACA against Chris Tremlett and co. The technique that delivered back-to-back hundreds in only his second Test was so fatally flawed he’d need to change it.

Hughes went back to Shield cricket and went to work on facing the short ball, and while he still looked ugly facing it, he stopped getting out to it. So much so that people noticed a new flaw upon his return - he wouldn’t cover his off stump. So Hughes worked again, this time he came back covering his off stump. It meant that instead of standing back and defending, he moved across the stumps to defend the ball. Now he pushes across the line gingerly in a manner that would convince any cover fielder to skip to slip.

The confident, quick-footed youngster who played like a tailender with Don Bradman’s eye is gone. He’s been replaced by a shaky, browbeaten cricketer who walks out to bat drenched with indecision and often leaves shortly afterwards, often with a ‘sadly’ attached. Hughes can’t find a technique that will give him enough runs, or please people.

This current technique of Hughes cannot last. Perhaps he can change on the fly, but it seems unlikely. The sort of changes he needs to make can’t be worked out during a strategic time-out or between photo-shoots. If Hughes does find himself on the outer for Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Ed Cowan or Michael Klinger, he will have to painstakingly rebuild himself. That means Australia will have a 24 year old with Test experience on four different continents who has faced the wrath of fans and the examination of the press. When he comes back it could be for good, if he does come back.

However, this was not the day to be caught at long on smashing a spinner. For Hughes, it’s in the second innings that he’ll be under real pressure. He’ll be playing for his short-term career using a technique that he and everyone else has little faith in. And there will be a lot of people standing behind him waiting for a mistake, on and off the field. This won’t be the only article you read about him during this Test. Either way.

Sadly, Hughes may not survive, well at least not this incarnation.