The #putoutyourbats man

It was the hashtag that captured the cricketing world. But where did the #putoutyourbats idea originate? The answer: with Paul Taylor, a Sydney man with just a few hundred Twitter followers. When he heard the news of Phillip Hughes' death, Taylor walked through his lounge room, picked up his cricket bat and cap and placed them at the front door.

"[I was] overcome with sadness, knowing that there were a whole lot of cricketers feeling the same way," Taylor said on ETFM radio. "How do we convey our emotions? So I took a photo and placed it on Twitter with the hashtag. It was just a simple thing to say, this is a sad day, this is how I'm feeling."

Taylor shared his image on the ABC 702 radio Facebook page and tweeted it to media outlets, and the rest is history. From Sachin Tendulkar to Adam Gilchrist, from the New Zealand and Pakistan teams in the UAE to the Indian men's hockey team, Taylor's gesture was repeated around the world. Even the Google doodle in Australia was turned into a "put out your bats" icon.

"At no point did I ever think that this would happen," Taylor said. "I just took a photo in sadness and used a hashtag -- much the same as many others have done on a daily basis. It wasn't until bed time that I saw the numerous Facebook and Twitters alerts. I said to my partner, I think something is happening with what I did.

"I hope this outpouring of support for the [Hughes] family gives them some comfort in knowing that the wider cricket community is there with them at this time."

Taylor received plenty of media requests over the past week but said he decided against speaking until after Hughes was laid to rest on Wednesday. "I did not want to take away focus from what is a terribly tragic accident," he said.