The unfortunate and untimely death of Phillip Hughes has left a huge question mark over the future of Sean Abbott. The traumatised young fast bowler would have to live with the thought that it was his bouncer which led to the demise of Hughes. How difficult would the road ahead be for young Abbott? H Natarajan looks into the imponderables.
In the outpour of grief at the tragic and untimely death of Phil Hughes, there have been a few voices that have rallied around young Sean Abbott. If there was one message that tugged the hearts it was the caricature of the brilliant Satish Acharya — arguably the finest news cartoonist India has produced since the legendary RK Laxman. Hours after Hughes’s death numbed the cricketing world, Acharya came up with the below cartoon for Sify:
Cricket Australia (CA) has been swift in realising the magnitude of the potential devastation that the tragedy could cause and have provided Abbott — and other players — professional counselling. Many players, including the likes of Viv Richards, Adam Gilchrist, Ian Botham and Shan Pollock, have been equally quick in rallying round the callow fast bowler. It was not Abbott’s fault; he did not bowl with the intention of hurting Hughes. He bowled a perfectly legitimate ball, and Hughes mistimed a pull and found the ball crashed on the back left-hand side of his head.
Hughes crouched momentarily, dazed by the impact of the blow. He then collapsed. One of the first to attend on him was Abbott who ran towards Hughes and cradled him in his arms, while his team-mates frantically summoned for medical assistance. Hughes died two days later without regaining consciousness.
Hughes is dead and there are genuine fears that with the snuffing away of a young life another young career could also die. No cricketer would like to see another sportsman die on the field of play in the manner Hughes died. Though no person in his right mind will view Abbott as a villain in the sorry saga, the fact that it was his bouncer which led to Hughes’s demise will haunt him for the rest of his life. Whether he overcomes the trauma of his part in the death is something nobody can say for sure at this point of time. It could end his promising career and even play havoc with his life off the field.
This is something most people understand and there has been a groundswell support for Abbott. Among the comforters were Hughes’s sister Megan when the traumatised Abbott visited the St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney on Wednesday. But will these words act as curative property for a man who will be haunted by the many memories he has of Hughes, especially the welcome he received as an 18-year-old from the late opener when he made his Sheffield Shield debut for New South Wales in 2011?
How difficult is the road ahead for Sean Abbott?
It is not going to be easy for Abbott to take the field again in the frame of mind a sportsman would like to. It’s going to be even more challenging for him to run in and bowl quick or hurl a bouncer, as the mind would be on rewind mode to the tragic events that led to Hughes’s death.
During a tour game in 1988 between West Indies and Gloucestershire at Bristol, a helmetless Phil Simmons was struck on the temple while batting against fast bowler David Lawrence. Simmons heart had stopped beating and he needed emergency brain surgery. Mercifully, Simmons recovered and told Lawrence 48 hours later that it was not his [Lawrence] fault — something that Abbott won’t get to hear. Not only he didn’t hear such comforting words from Hughes, but his blow ended the batsman’s life.
One cannot ever forget the 1975 England tour of New Zealand when a Peter Lever bouncer felled a debutant Ewen Chatfield with a short ball that hit the batsman’s temple after ricocheting off the gloves. Chatfield staggered and fell to the ground.
Twitching and moaning, he lost consciousness. Chatfield’s heart had stopped beating and he had swallowed his tongue. If Chatfield is alive today, it is because of the timely help provided by Bernard Thomas, the England physiotherapist. Chatfield was rushed to the hospital and later recovered.
But even as efforts were made to save him on the ground, a disconsolate and sobbing Lever had slumped to the ground. He recalled later, “When the ambulance-men were working on Ewen, it was the closest I had come to praying for a long time. I honestly thought I had killed him as I saw him lying there in convulsions. I felt sick and ashamed at what I had done and all I could think when I got back to the pavilion was that I wanted to retire.”
Alan Mullally, the former England fast bowler, also gave a peek into the fast bowler’s mind in such situations by recalling the time he knocked out tail-ender Jason Constable on the temple while playing for South Perth against University in 1987. The batsman, unaware that the second new ball was taken, was not wearing a helmet.
“The noise [of the ball hitting the temple] was terrible. It was like a bullet hitting. You could tell instantly that he was hit square because the ball rebounded back to me nearly on the full,” Mullally told The Western Australian. Constable collapsed at his residence later that night and only the presence of his doctor father saved his life.
Constable recovered after being critical for a while, but Mullally endured the trauma of that incident much longer. “I had sleepless night for months after that. I would wake up crying. I was devastated at first because I didn’t know if he was going to live and then I was devastated because I did know that I had ended his career and all his cricket hopes and dreams,” Mullally told in the interview to The Western Australian.
The rehab process is going to be long and hard for young Abbott. And there will always be insensitive souls who say something to him that is going to make the healing process harder.
Live in peace, Sean Abbott. Rest in peace, Phil Hughes.
(H Natarajan is the Chief Editor of CricLife. He is the founding editor of CricketCountry.com, and formerly All India Deputy Sports Editor of the Indian Express and Senior Editor with Cricinfo/Wisden. A prolific writer, he has written for many of the biggest newspapers, magazines and websites all over the world. A great believer in the power of social media, he can be followed on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/H.Natarajan and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/hnatarajan)
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