Cricket and Australia are in mourning as one of Australia's finest young batsman Phillip Hughes, 25, passed away from injuries after being struck in the neck, behind the ear, by a cricket ball.
Hughes passed away in the early hours of the yesterday morning in Sydney; after he lost his two day battle whilst in a coma. The fatal moment came when he was hit in the neck by a short delivery from Sean Abbott. He was wearing a helmet, but the ball hit on an unprotected part of his neck.
Hughes was playing for South Australia against New South Wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
He never regained his consciousness following the injury and died surrounded by his loved ones.
This injury was caused by a severe haemorrhage to the brain. There has only ever been 100 or so cases of fatal sport injury that have ever been recorded before, with only one case where somebody had actually died from a blow to the neck by a cricket ball, while wearing a helmet; In 2013 Darryn Randall, a cricket player from South Africa, was hit on the side of the neck, collapsed and later died in hospital.
The Hughes tragedy is prompting the Cricket officials to investigate into procedures and equipment safety; helmet manufacturers are under pressure to explore ways of making cricket helmets safer.
The whole cricket community is in mourning; the Indian Cricket team played their respects by not training on the Oval at Adelaide because this was Hughes' home cricket ground. The match between New Zealand and Pakistan has also been abandoned, the opening test of the tour being due to start in a week.
England and Sri Lankan players, who are due to play the second one-day international in Colombo, will play on Saturday wearing black armbands in memory of Hughes.
Hughes was at the peak of his life and the youngest player to ever score back to back centuries in a test match; he delivered that at the tender age of 20, against South Africa. His game needed a little tweaking recently but he had all the ingredients to become one of Australia's finest ever batsman. He played his county cricket for Middlesex, Worcestershire and Hampshire and was a class act earning 52 caps for his country along the way.
Over the last 5 years Hughes struggled to repeat the heights of his early career from 2009, but his considerable talent, hard work and appetite for the game helped him to be prominent in Cricket Australia's selections.
Deepest sympathies to his family, friends and teammates. RIP Phillip Hughes.
