'Will miss you forever'
Questions abound over whether Australia and India should play at the Gabba on December 4, as more tributes to Phillip Hughes come in
29-Nov-2014
In his column for the Daily Telegraph, Michael Clarke writes about Phillip Hughes the person and not just the cricketer. Calling him his brother, Clarke talks about Hughes' nature, his attitude towards the game, his positive approach towards life and much more.
Whenever Hughesy suffered adversity -- if he was replaced in the team or if he wasn't scoring as many runs as he wanted -- he never dropped his head, never once complained. If he had a tough conversation with a selector he would nod, agree he needed to work harder, grin because he felt bad for the person delivering the message and then get on with it.
In another column for the Daily Telegraph, Clarke shows his support for Sean Abbott. He calls the Hughes accident a "freak accident" and says no one should blame Abbott in any way.
Sean, when you feel like getting back on the horse mate, I promise you that I will be the first to strap on the pads and go stand up the end of the net to hit them back at you. It's exactly what Hugh Dog would want us both to do.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Baum asks whether the first Test between Australia and India at the Gabba should go ahead, whether Varun Aaron would bounce David Warner if it did, whether Mitchell Johnson would be able to do what is natural to him, whether the crowd would respond angrily, and whether any of it matters.
Well, yes, as long as the thought does not offend the Hughes family, and the players approve, and it is clear that each player can make up his own mind, without prejudice to future selection. Why? Because it would be the surest way to begin to heal the national heartache. Because lost as the Australian players are without Hughes, they will be more lost without a game to distract them. Because that is also true of fans. Because, sensitively staged, a Test match could act as the country's memorial service to Hughes, and what better? Because it is easy to believe that Hughes would have wanted this match to be proceed; after all, he might have been playing in it.
In the Age, Adam Pengilly tells a story of how, with one run needed in the last over, a blonde kid batting on a hundred in a club game played out five dots before smashing the final delivery of the game for a six, because he could and was determined to see it through to the finish.
A six to win it off the last ball when all that it needed was a single off the first. But how boring would that have been? The kid was Macksville's Phil Hughes, playing his first Sydney grade game for Western Suburbs' second XI in the last fixture of the 2005-06 season, and hitting a six off the last ball to endear himself to his new teammates. Your columnist was his talentless opening partner who trudged off 49.3 overs earlier. But how good was it to just once have the chance watch up-close the little blond kid, determined to be not out until the very last?
In the Telegraph, Jonathan Pearlman speaks to people from Phillip Hughes' hometown Macksville, people who grew up with the Australian batsman, people who remember a young lad no one could get out.
"One back yard game, we decided that if you hit the clothes line pole, it was worth 50 runs," said Rick Laverty, 30, a fellow backyard player who now fixes local power lines. "Phil hit it three times in one innings. It was incredible. Before we knew it, he was on 150 runs." It was these frequent makeshift games on East Street that are believed to have spawned Hughes's unusual left-hand batting style, which favoured his off-side and included a notoriously dangerous cut shot. In the backyard, he was the only left-hander on a makeshift field that favoured right handers: if he hit it too hard on his leg side, he would break a row of glass windows.