AUSTRALIAN captain Michael Clarke promised the Australian cricket side would do everything it could to honour Phil Hughes’s memory.
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Hughes, who would have turned 26 yesterday, died Thursday after being hit by a cricket ball playing in a Sheffield Shield match for South Australia against NSW.
His funeral will be held on Wednesday at Macksville High School.
The freakish nature of his death has shocked and stunned not only a nation but cricketers and sportspeople around the world.
Cricketers around Australia took to their fields around the nation in sombre moods on Saturday.
Sydney and Adelaide grade cricket competitions were abandoned.
Competitions around the nation observed a minute’s silence on Saturday.
In Tamworth, the Friday evening Twenty20 also observed a massed minute’s silence before their regular games and behind a “RIP 408” sign emblazoned on the grass at Dick Edwards Oval in memory of Hughes, the 408th Australian Test-playing cricketer.
Club and school games went ahead after Cricket Australia (CA) asked clubs to consider a range of tributes, including black armbands.
CA also asked the mandatory retirement score for junior players be lifted from the traditional 50 to 63.
Hughes was unbeaten on 63 batting for South Australia in a Sheffield Shield clash on Tuesday when he was felled by a lethal bouncer.
South Australian coach Darren Berry, detailed why Hughes “was universally loved”.
“His impact in our dressing room in a short space of time was enormous,” Berry wrote of Hughes, who shifted to Adelaide in 2012.
“He was a great role model for our young team and one we will all sadly miss but never forget.
“He was a charming, cheeky larrikin and someone who taught all of us plenty.”
CA chief executive James Sutherland confirmed the First Test against India had been postponed.
Across the world people began leaving their cricket bats out in a “Put Your Bat Out for Phillip” commemoration.
Locally, Attunga’s Lavinia Todd was one.
She admits she’s been no big cricket fan over the years.
Lavinia, better known as Vinnie, had lost her son, Jamie Todd, a few years back.
“The Phillip Hughes tragedy would have to soften the hardest of critics guilty of switching channels as soon as the summer Tests start,” Vinnie said.
“So when I checked out the headlines yesterday morning, and saw the ‘Put Out Your Bats For Phillip’ tribute sweeping the nation, I said ‘I can do that’ for a young fellow who could have been anything.
“So I dragged out Jamie’s old bat and hat and positioned them nicely at the back door.”
St Edward’s Primary School principal Garry McSweeney was another who wanted to celebrate the life of a wonderful young man.
He said it was an extremely sad event.
McSweeney is also part of the NSW Schools Sports Association, has been for a long time and recalled a State PSSA School Sports Association boys’ cricket carnival attended by Hughes.
“They couldn’t get him out once in the four days,” he recalled.
“He played for Polding, then the State and the big time. He was just a great kid.”
Hughes was instrumental in Polding beating CIS in the final of that carnival.
He scored two centuries in that carnival, one being an unbeaten 157 in the final.
