Phillip Hughes dies, aged 25

Merlin wrote:It appears that, on Friday last,  Alastair Cook asked the ECB who they were sending to
Phillip Hughes's funeral on Wednesday.

They hadn't decided at that time, saying (according to the DT) that they would revert.

There is no decision to be made here, IMO.

I feel very strongly that Cook ought to represent English cricket by attending the
funeral himself (and to hell with a piffing meaningless ODI in SL) - rather than sending over
some jobs-worth from the ECB.

It is only right and fitting.

Grand idea. It would also mean England actually perform a bit better in Sri lanka.

I heard Haigh say that on 'The Offsiders' too.

http://www.cricket.com.au/news/feature/greg-chappell-column-on-the-death-of-phillip-hughes/2014-12-01

Thoughtful column by Chappellg on the passing of Hughes.

If you ignore GSC's ashram tosh.

Only Sam Robson and Nick Compton going to PH's funeral on Wednesday.
Sadly the ECB don't see fit to send a representative ...
I hate Giles Clarke.
Anyway, the two who are going knew PH well, both having played alongside him in the early days ... kinda like a private tribute. Good for them.

Merlin wrote:Only Sam Robson and Nick Compton going to PH's funeral on Wednesday.
Sadly the ECB don't see fit to send a representative ...
I hate Giles Clarke.
Anyway, the two who are going knew PH well, both having played alongside him in the early days ... kinda like a private tribute. Good for them.

Are the other boards sending a representative (I know a number of the Indian touring party will be there).


On another matter, I wonder who the pall bearers will be (if any). Was thinking that aside from Hughes bro, his 3 Test captains - Ponting, Clarke and Watson - and the guy who should have been his 4th - Haddin - would be appropriate.

Robson and Compton, well done.

Pity G Clarke couldn't fit anything into his busy schedule.

On second thoughts, he might have started: "Gentlemen, this is a sad day for cricket. But some business may yet come out of it." ... so perhaps not.

JGK wrote:

Merlin wrote:Only Sam Robson and Nick Compton going to PH's funeral on Wednesday.
Sadly the ECB don't see fit to send a representative ...
I hate Giles Clarke.
Anyway, the two who are going knew PH well, both having played alongside him in the early days ... kinda like a private tribute. Good for them.

Are the other boards sending a representative (I know a number of the Indian touring party will be there).


On another matter, I wonder who the pall bearers will be (if any).   Was thinking that aside from Hughes bro, his 3 Test captains - Ponting, Clarke and Watson - and the guy who should have been his 4th - Haddin - would be appropriate.

On the news they said Clarke, Finch, Tom Cooper and Hughes' brother and father would be the pall bearers.

lardbucket wrote:

JGK wrote:Pop music legend Elton John has paid tribute to Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes and expressed support for bowler Sean Abbott during a concert in Germany.

Sir John dedicated his 1974 hit Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me to 25-year-old Hughes, who died in Sydney on Thursday, two days after he was struck on the head by a cricket ball while playing in a Sheffield Shield match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

"I am a big huge sports fan and I love cricket, which you don't know anything about over here," John told the audience in Munich on Thursday.

"Today an Australian batsman called Phil Hughes died of injuries he received while batting in Sydney in Australia, and the man who bowled the ball is a 22-year-old called Sean Abbott and it wasn't his fault, it was a freak accident.

"But, I want to dedicate this song to the memory of Phil Hughes and to the Australian team and all the cricketers in Australia who knew him because, he gave me so much pleasure.

"To Sean Abbott, all I can say is that it's going to take you a long time to get over this but you have a huge future ahead of you so please don't give up. This is for you Phil, wherever you are."

probably the best thing Reg has ever done

Don't let the sun go down on me is going to be the exit song tomorrow.

I wonder if Reg himself will perform it.

And the opener will be Youth Group's Forever Young. That's me gone blubbering.

If there was a market framed (and I would not have been all that flabbergasted any more if there had), FY would have been a million to one on.

Aye, but a highly appropriate song in this instance.

I am going to to struggle to watch this.

Hughes' cousin, Nino Ramunno is giving the first eulogy. He has remembered the 25-year-old as a "one of a kind, a young kid from the country who dared to dream big" and who showed if you set your mind to it "you could achieve greatness".

He has recounted when Hughes first moved to Sydney to complete his HSC.

"The only grumble Phillip had about school was in the final year," Mr Ramunno told the service.

"When asked how his first day was, Phillip replied with a very disappointed look on his face,'it was okay but there are no girls there'."

"We thought the name of the school, Homebush Boys, might have given this indication to Phillip, but alas no."

3:20pm: Clarke:

The tributes to him from cricket lovers across the globe have kept me going. The photos, the words and the sense of communion in this sense of loss has shown me his spirit is in action. It has sustained me and overwhelmed me in equal measure, and the love of my band of Baggy Green and Gold brothers and sisters have held me upright when I felt I could not proceed.

His spirit has brought us closer together, something I know must be him at work because it's so consistent with how he played and lived. He always wanted to bring people together, always wanted to celebrate his love for the game and its people.

Is this what we call the spirit of cricket? From the little girl in Karachi holding a candle-light tribute, to masters of the game like Tendulkar, Warne and Lara, showing their grief to the world, the spirit of cricket binds us all together.

We feel it in the thrill of a coverdrive, or the taking of a screamer in gully, whether by a 12-year-old boy in Worcester or by Brendan McCullum in Dubai. It's in the brilliant 105 wicket haul, just as significant to the players in a western suburbs club game, as it is in a Test match.

The bonds that lead to cricketers around the world leaving their bats out, that saw people who didn't even know Phillip leave flowers at the gates of Lords, and that brought every cricketing nation on earth to make its own heartfelt tribute. The bonds that saw players old and new rush to his bedside, from wherever they heard the news, to say their prayers and farewells.

This is what makes our game the greatest game in the world.

JGK wrote:I am going to to struggle to watch this.

Happy to admit I howled like a baby at one point. Gut-wrenching.

Gut wrenching stuff. I choked up firstly when 'forever young' was played at the start, and then anytime I saw his parents on the screen, crying and absolutely devastated. I kept thinking, "no parent should ever have to bury their child."

Oh, they showed that video dedication to Hughes that was on the CA website. Lost it again at that point.

Say what you want about Cricket Australia and James Sutherland, but his performance during this awful time has been magnificent.

skully wrote:

JGK wrote:I am going to to struggle to watch this.

Happy to admit I howled like a baby at one point. Gut-wrenching.

gotta admit that clarkes speech had me blubbering

Henry wrote:Say what you want about Cricket Australia and James Sutherland, but his performance during this awful time has been magnificent.

weve seen the best of the game and a good few of its figureheads through this. the real tragedy is that it took a death to do it

JGK wrote:3:20pm: Clarke:

The tributes to him from cricket lovers across the globe have kept me going. The photos, the words and the sense of communion in this sense of loss has shown me his spirit is in action. It has sustained me and overwhelmed me in equal measure, and the love of my band of Baggy Green and Gold brothers and sisters have held me upright when I felt I could not proceed.

His spirit has brought us closer together, something I know must be him at work because it's so consistent with how he played and lived. He always wanted to bring people together, always wanted to celebrate his love for the game and its people.

Is this what we call the spirit of cricket? From the little girl in Karachi holding a candle-light tribute, to masters of the game like Tendulkar, Warne and Lara, showing their grief to the world, the spirit of cricket binds us all together.

We feel it in the thrill of a coverdrive, or the taking of a screamer in gully, whether by a 12-year-old boy in Worcester or by Brendan McCullum in Dubai. It's in the brilliant 105 wicket haul, just as significant to the players in a western suburbs club game, as it is in a Test match.

The bonds that lead to cricketers around the world leaving their bats out, that saw people who didn't even know Phillip leave flowers at the gates of Lords, and that brought every cricketing nation on earth to make its own heartfelt tribute. The bonds that saw players old and new rush to his bedside, from wherever they heard the news, to say their prayers and farewells.

This is what makes our game the greatest game in the world.

Whoa. That was something.

furriner wrote:

JGK wrote:3:20pm: Clarke:

The tributes to him from cricket lovers across the globe have kept me going. The photos, the words and the sense of communion in this sense of loss has shown me his spirit is in action. It has sustained me and overwhelmed me in equal measure, and the love of my band of Baggy Green and Gold brothers and sisters have held me upright when I felt I could not proceed.

His spirit has brought us closer together, something I know must be him at work because it's so consistent with how he played and lived. He always wanted to bring people together, always wanted to celebrate his love for the game and its people.

Is this what we call the spirit of cricket? From the little girl in Karachi holding a candle-light tribute, to masters of the game like Tendulkar, Warne and Lara, showing their grief to the world, the spirit of cricket binds us all together.

We feel it in the thrill of a coverdrive, or the taking of a screamer in gully, whether by a 12-year-old boy in Worcester or by Brendan McCullum in Dubai. It's in the brilliant 105 wicket haul, just as significant to the players in a western suburbs club game, as it is in a Test match.

The bonds that lead to cricketers around the world leaving their bats out, that saw people who didn't even know Phillip leave flowers at the gates of Lords, and that brought every cricketing nation on earth to make its own heartfelt tribute. The bonds that saw players old and new rush to his bedside, from wherever they heard the news, to say their prayers and farewells.

This is what makes our game the greatest game in the world.

Whoa.  That was something.

it gets better

“The spirit of cricket binds us all together … Phillip’s spirit, now part of the game forever, will act as a custodian for the sport we all love. We must listen to it, cherish it and learn from it. We must dig in and get through to tea. And we must play on.

Aye, well done, Pup. He struggled to hold it together but left his team mates, the attendees and the rest of us in tears.

Vale Phillip Hughes.

thanks for the coverage of the funeral folks.. The excerpts from Clarke's speech are harrowing but wondrous. No doubt the young fellow called pup has become something of an older statesman.

Loved the story about Hughes complaints following his first day at Homebush

IMO Clarke has given one of the great cricket speeches, great prose in any form.  Qunt.

Does anyone else think the whole Hughes thing is a bit OTT?
It seems to be reaching Lady Di proportions with the public outpouring of grief. I ask this because one of my work colleagues pointed out a small notice in the paper about the death of a lady who raised over a million dollars for charity over her
lifetime & her only recognition was one paragraph in the local rag.
Yes, it was a tragedy that Hughes died so young but lets put it into proportion. He was a professional cricketer who was generously paid to play & was killed in a freak accident doing his job. He didn't discover a cure for cancer. He didn't feed the starving multitudes. Does he deserve this outpouring of adulation when the poor old lady who really made a difference to peoples lives gets almost nothing?
....just a thought

Big Dog wrote:Does anyone else think the whole Hughes thing is a bit OTT?
It seems to be reaching Lady Di proportions with the public outpouring of grief. I ask this because one of my work colleagues pointed out a small notice in the paper about the death of a lady who raised over a million dollars for charity over her
lifetime & her only recognition was one paragraph in the local rag.
Yes, it was a tragedy that Hughes died so young but lets put it into proportion. He was a professional cricketer who was generously paid to play & was killed in a freak accident doing his job. He didn't discover a cure for cancer. He didn't feed the starving multitudes. Does he deserve this outpouring of adulation when the poor old lady who really made a difference to peoples lives gets almost nothing?
....just a thought

Hopefully it will start dying down now. It was a tragedy but it is time to move on.