Death of a Cricketer: Phillip Hughes 1988-2014

If sport is a quest for the epic it is also, at the highest echelons, a tilt at immortality. Phillip Hughes has achieved that in the most unconscionable fashion. He will be remembered for as long as the game is played. He is another member of the What might Have Been club.  This, of course, reflects the horrifying manner of his death – felled by an ordinary bouncer that left a freakish mark – but also the fact that despite 26 test match appearances and nearly 10,000 first-class runs we never quite got to see the best of Phillip Joel Hughes. The promise had not been fulfilled. Not quite at any rate but, as he approached his 26th birthday, there was ample reason to think his finest years lay ahead. Years in which the flashing impetuosity of youth would be strengthened by the wisdom of maturity. He still had time to be a batsman in full.