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29 March 2024

RIP Phillip Hughes: 'We love you' says grief-stricken Australia captain Clarke

Published
By Agencies

Long called upon to rescue his team from treacherous situations, Australia captain Michael Clarke could do little to save his close friend Phillip Hughes, but bore his grief quietly in a vital supporting role for his "little brother's" family.

Clarke was among the first to arrive at St Vincent's hospital on Tuesday after Hughes was rushed there with a sickening head injury and read the family's statement upon his death, three days before his 26th birthday.


In between, the 33-year-old was rarely away from the bedside of the player he mentored and ushered into New South Wales and later the national team.

TV footage showed Clarke walking briskly through the Sydney hospital's doors early every morning and trudging out despondent much later in the day.

He returned at six in the morning on Thursday, perhaps hoping for some better news as Hughes, who never regained consciousness after being struck on the neck by a rising delivery in a domestic match, entered a third day in an induced coma.

Unshaven, with rings under his eyes, Clarke's head was bowed as he read the family statement, his voice clear if a little gravelly. He didn't trip on a single word but after reading the final phrase - "we love you" - he exited quickly, overcome.

"Phillip has always been a little brother to Michael," team doctor Peter Brukner said, his voice quivering with emotion.

"Michael's efforts over the last 48 hours to support the family - the family was obviously going through a difficult time - but I'm not sure they would have coped without Michael's assistance.


"I was just enormously impressed at the work he did and the genuine care and love he gave to the Hughes family."

Clarke spent time consoling the other party to the tragedy, all-rounder Sean Abbott, whose ball reared up and ruptured an artery, causing a rush of blood to Hughes' brain that ultimately proved fatal.

"When he came to the hospital yesterday, Michael Clarke came down and spent a significant amount of time with (Abbott)," Brukner added.

Clarke is nursing a hamstring injury, battling to be fit for a first Test against India that may yet be called off.

Pundits this week called him selfish to try to prove his fitness with his Sydney club rather than play a tour match against India as selectors had wanted.

Others have written his body off completely, calling on him to step down as captain, or at least give up one-day cricket.

The events this week underscored the trivial nature of the episode and the media attention it created.

 


Grief-stricken Clarke's leadership will be needed in coming days, even without a ball bowled in anger.  

Rare

Batsman Phillip Hughes died of an "incredibly rare" condition after he was hit in the neck by a cricket ball, causing bleeding into his brain, his Australian doctors said Thursday.

 


"This was a freakish accident because it was an injury to the neck that caused haemorrhage in the brain. The condition is incredibly rare," Australian team doctor Peter Brukner told reporters.

"Only 100 cases ever reported - this is incredibly rare. Only one ever case reported as a result of a cricket ball."

Tony Grabs, the head of trauma surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney where Hughes was taken, described the "catastrophic" injury as "very rare and very freakish".

Brukner said the blow to the left-hander's neck compressed his vertebral artery - one of the main arteries that leads to the brain - causing it to split and bleed into the brain.

While such an injury is "frequently fatal at the time", Brukner said Cricket NSW team doctor John Orchard, paramedics and an intensive care specialist in the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground were able to keep the batsman alive before he was taken to nearby St Vincent's in a "reasonable condition".

Grabs said doctors ordered a CAT scan soon after Hughes arrived and then took the decision to operate on the cricketer to reduce the pressure on his brain.

"He went to... theatre to remove some of the skull around his brain to help to allow the brain to expand so it wasn't compressed," Grabs said, adding that the surgery took about 80 minutes before Hughes was taken back to the intensive care unit.

"After this we need to induce a coma to rest the patient and rest the brain and look after all the other bodily functions for him.

"Over a period of the first 24 to 48 hours, as we know, he did not make very much improvement. And unfortunately as a consequence of the injury, he died."

 


Governing body Cricket Australia (CA) confirmed the 25-year-old had lost his fight for life, casting a pall over the cricket-mad nation who are co-hosting the World Cup early next year.

"We are extremely sad to announce that Phillip Hughes has passed away at the age of 25," CA said on its Twitter feed.

"Our thoughts go out to Phillip's family, friends, and the entire cricket community on this incredibly sad day.

"He was not in pain before he passed and was surrounded by his family and close friends.

"As a cricket community, we mourn his loss and extend our deepest sympathies to Phillips family and friends at this incredibly sad time."

Hughes, who played in 26 Tests and 25 one-day internationals for Australia, had spent a second night at the hospital in an induced coma after having emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain.

He was struck on the head by a ball at the Sydney Cricket Ground when batting for South Australia, a devastating blow that experts compared to the trauma suffered by victims of a car crash.

News of Hughes's death brought a fresh wave of tributes on social media, with past and present players conveying their shock and grief.

"No no no no no. RIP Phillip Hughes," former Australia wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist tweeted.

Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbott described Hughes as a "a young man living out his dreams".

"His death is a very sad day for cricket and a heartbreaking day for his family,' Abbott said in a statement.

"What happened has touched millions of Australians.

"For a young life to be cut short playing our national game seems a shocking aberration."

The tragic announcement followed calls by former players for the Australian team to abandon the first test of the four-match series against India next week.

Questions about the response time of ambulances dispatched to the stadium have also been raised.

The head of New South Wales Ambulance was to be hauled before the state health minister Jillian Skinner on Thursday after the ambulance authority issued conflicting statements about their response times.

The arrival of the first ambulance took 15 minutes, NSW Ambulance clarified in a statement on Wednesday.

The state's median response time for the highest priority "life-threatening cases" was just under eight minutes in 2013-14, according the authority's statistics.

Dr Peter Larkins, a leading sports physician, told Reuters: "Time is of the essence when your brain has suffered trauma."