Hughes Tragedy Shows It's Time To Start Respecting Cricket's Best

It's meant to be such a gentlemanly game, cricket. But the death of Phillip Hughes shows the sort of risks that batsmen are confronted with on a daily basis. It's something we take for granted, says DW's André Leslie.

The images went around the world, and so did the well-wishes too. But in the end, it could do nothing to save the life of Phillip Hughes. The 25-year-old just wasn't able to recover from a heavy knock on the base of his head sustained at a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney earlier this week.



The cricketing world is in shock and Australia is devastated. This was meant to be the start of a wonderful World Cup summer Down Under. Now, it will always be remembered for the wrong reasons.



In Europe, the story has slowly been spreading across the newspapers and TV stations. The reluctance of local journalists to engage with a sport that they struggle to understand was tangible. But in the end, the outpouring of emotion across the English-language news world was too much, and the German, French and Belgian journalists buckled.



Still, confusion here lingers on. How could a sport that appears so gentlemanly - almost gentle in fact, to many Europeans - lead to the death of one of its top professionals?



Those of us who really know the game though, are not surprised, even if we are shocked. Every time you walk out to bat in a cricket match you are taking a risk.



The need for speed



Just like in baseball, people love to watch cricket's fast bowlers (read pitchers if you don't know the sport). Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall: I guarantee, all these names send a tingle down cricket fans' spines when they think back to their childhood. As I grew up beside Brett Lee at Mosman Cricket Club, back in my home town of Sydney, we always marvelled at his sheer pace. We revelled in the fear that he could instill in opposition batsmen.



Batting for Germany as an adult I felt that fear again, but on the other side. In one of my first international matches for my adopted country, playing against Kuwait in 2010, I faced some of the fastest bowling I'd ever witnessed in my life.



I'll never forget it: I copped about 10 balls on the body over the period of an hour. The light was good, the pitch was perfect, and I was seeing the ball well. Still, that little piece of leather and cork was just coming too quickly and I just missed it. When I look back at it, I didn't really have enough time to react. Gut instinct, years of training sessions and a bit of good luck helped me stay there, and my team got off to a good start.



Dealing with the stress



For top level cricketers, who play the sport for a living, it's like that pretty much every time they go out to bat. There is always some fast bowler on the opposing team who can injure you. It won't have been much different for Phillip Hughes at the SCG this week either, although he won't have been too concerned. His mind was on getting back a starting position in the Australian test team and he was on his way to the target.



A few years back, I remember watching Hughes batting for Western Suburbs in the Sydney Grade Cricket competition. It's one of the toughest amateur leagues in the world and Hughes was struggling for form. Slashing at a ball outside off stump, as he loved to do, he was dropped right at the start of his innings. Then he was dropped again, wafting at the same type of ball. It was exactly the sort of batting that used to annoy fans and critics about Hughes. He had a brilliant eye, but did he have the temperament to play for Australia?



He didn't let it bother him though. With his trademark carefree approach, Hughes just kept attacking. Within half an hour he took the game away from the opposition, going on to score a beautiful hundred in front of just a handful of fans. It was an important, fighting innings - a small step on the way to what was meant to be a long career.



Sadly, we won't be seeing him do that again anymore. But hopefully, we'll all learn something from this incident: to give our sportsmen the respect they deserve. Even if we don't like their style.



André Leslie has been playing cricket for Germany's national team since 2010. He works as a sports editor for DW.