I woke up this morning to the tragic and premature passing away of Phillp Joel Hughes. Like many Australians and cricket fans around the world, his death has left me feeling numb. In fact, even in the trolling gauntlet of Twitter, sporting rivalries have been cast aside as cricket lovers and their non-cricket loving partners unite in expressing their sadness for this loss. Putting aside the expected grief at the loss of any young life, this is my attempt to rationalise that reaction. I have quite a few friends who dislike cricket. Its so boring, they exclaim to me. Yes, but I like cricket, especially test match cricket, because the game is such a metaphor for life, I persist. For much of the time, nothing seems to be happening in cricket. The ball is bowled, no shot is played and the wicketkeeper catches the ball. Or the bowlers delivery is defended sedately by the batsman for no runs. Rinse and repeat. But like life, a cricket match meanders along, seemingly aimlessly and uneventfully, sometimes for hours and even days. Until, unexpectedly, someone is bowled to a thunderous yorker, dismissed leg before wicket to a vociferous appeal, spectacularly caught or run out thanks to amazing athleticism and precision. From that one wicket, much can happen. Another wicket. A hat-trick. A batting collapse and the game turns. In cricket, such is the breadth of possibilities that you can really experience the sporting equivalent of four seasons in one day. As anyone who has read the back page of a newspaper might know, sporting careers are often questioned by journalists. Cricketers are no exception. In a test match between Australia and South Africa in 1993/94, the former Australian batsman, Damien Martyn, then aged 23, played one false shot and was caught. Australia lost the test match in a very close contest. Martyn was criticised by the media for that shot and was consequently exiled from further representative cricket for Australia until the next millennium. The fact that the careers of cricketers can turn on one decision made in less than two-fifth of a second puts in context the endless permutations and combinations. An incorrect LBW decision or a dropped catch can turn the course of a match, end or save a players or coachs career. It, of course, resonates in life. All of our successes and failures have been as the result of our decisions, both well made and poorly made ones. Indeed, cricket is a sport of quantitative extremes, where a five-day test match can theoretically be won in less than 1 hour, where statistics and sporting achievements are bound only our imagination of numbers (as demonstrated by Rohit Sharmas recent innings of 260 odd in a one-day international). It is also a game of qualitative and cultural extremes, played and televised across the world, in various stadia and cultures, from the gentrified Lords Cricket Ground in West London to the frenzy of a cricket-loving public in Eden Gardens, Kolkata. But for all of the above and despite all of its extremes, the twists and turns of cricket had been no more than a metaphor for life. For every wicket lost, for every six, for every threat of Get ready for a broken arm, it was just a game. So when Australias summer pastime merges, tragically and unexpectedly, with the loss a life, its outcome hits a nerve. #RIPPhillipHughes
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 10:02:47 +0000
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