Why Phillip Hughes's death will have a lasting impact on cricket

Any avid fan, after neoteric occurrences, could be pressed to admit that they took cricket for granted. We all did, because we had no reason not to. Most of us belong to a generation that welcomes heavily armoured batsmen as the norm. The ones that were luckily present to witness those light protection, no-helmet days would admit that the present day had made them complacent of cricket’s rarer, darker vices.

As a kid I grew up fearing the cricket ball, accustomed as I was to the children-friendly tennis balls. These tennis balls bounced around my cricketing childhood, the innocuous alternative to the nimbleness of youth and the fragility of the neighbour’s windowpanes. This meant that when I finally got into a cricket coaching academy at the age of ten, I stood in reverential awe of coaches who would dare to bat without pads or helmets.

For I would never dream of walking out stark naked, as I saw it, presenting a viable body for battering. This defensive approach affected my cricket, and sparked the genesis of the aforementioned fear of the hard cricket ball.

I grew out of that fear with age, and the confidence it brought turned my cricket around. I emerged from the dome of volatile anxiety into the dome of bubbling, surging confidence. But today, I feel like the same 10-year old, with the same fear. My cricket, as I knew it, has bared its fangs at me, showing me a side I knew existed but believed to be reticent.

Death Is No Sport

The barrier between sports, entertainment and reality has imploded. The sport I religiously adore has metamorphosed into a potentially fatal activity. It shouldn’t be that way, because death is no sport. A couple of years back, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler infamously collapsed during a live WWE RAW taping in Montreal. My TV show had become real.

It doesn’t have to matter that I never followed Phillip Hughes’ career, nor showed any support to his struggle for a national spot. I knew him from his few diligent knocks, but mostly from my EA Cricket computer games. In my eyes, he was (just like me) a person madly in love with a sport I’m madly in love with. He shouldn’t, didn’t deserve to, die for that.

Accidents happen, and sports on an international level are known to be dangerous. Injuries, even career-ending ones are common and we discard them as a part of sport. Death, however, is a different ballpark.

Cricket Shouldn’t Be Like Every Other Sport

In the coming few weeks, questions will be tossed around whether cricket is safe, and maybe larger helmets or softer balls will be propounded. The inner workings of the game will be put under scrutiny, and they should be, for this should remain a sport and not a game of life.

The striking point here is that, yes, many other sports have lethal risks involved, but I don’t count my cricket to be one of them.

The hardest part is, there’s no one to blame. The bowler, who might be succumbed under the guilt of taking a life, is not at fault. Bouncers are a part of the game, and would probably remain so. The psychological impact of this might even end the bowler’s career, and subsequently his love for the thing he was madly in love with.

Many legends, from many spheres, have passed away. Actors that entertained me in movies, sportsmen that I adored and emulated, and while saddened with grief, it never shocked me. Death is inevitable. Yet, here I am today, shocked and absolutely shattered by the occurrence of it in a sport I love for a man I never knew much about.

I would like to extend my condolences to Phillip Hughes’ family and friends. May his soul rest in peace.