Cricket's darkest day

I just spent twenty minutes in a school carpark reading this piece by Peter Lalor about the day Phillip Hughes was struck.

Nov 25, 2024

PutOutYourBats: Cricket fans around the world put out their bats to pay tribute to Phillip Hughes - ABC News

There is so much detail here because of Peter’s skill at his craft, and the voice recorder that kept rolling. I've spent my whole life deriving such pleasure from sport, in many ways it's given meaning to my life. This day was a tearing in the fabric of my universe. Thoughts with the cricket community today, and with everyone who knew and loved Phillip.

November 25, 2014

It was the cut shots that stood out, of course. Phillip had a commanding drive, but it was the shots through square shone brightest. His square cuts that day had a special quality. In one of Hillyard’s photographs, Hughes is reclining like a limbo dancer, so low that his knee kisses the pitch. His helmet at stump height, his eyes in line with the ball. It would be enough to convince selectors that Hughes was back to his eccentric brilliant best. When he was in these moods, swatting them off middle stump, you knew what Andre Nel meant when he said there were times there was no where to bowl to this young man. You shouldn’t have been able to play that shot to that ball. He was finely honed and fiercely focused, again, after losing his way for a time, but there’s a selector here that day in November and this innings progress has not passed unnoticed…

22 days ago · 20 likes · 11 comments · Peter Lalor

Gideon Haigh wrote this piece yesterday, in which he spoke to the umpires and match referees from that terrible day.

Cricket's First Responders

Nobody could name them today - which, in their telling, is just fine. The best match officials, it’s said, efface themselves so completely that you’re hardly aware of their existence. By that measure they did their jobs…

23 days ago · 79 likes · 35 comments · Gideon Haigh

On

Speakola newsletter

, I posted Michael Clarke’s eulogy for Hughes, one of the greatest speeches ever delivered by a sportsperson.

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'We must dig in and get through to tea'

Gideon Haigh wrote a piece for Cricket Et Al today about the umpires and referees on who officiated on that day. There’s a section of it that’s really harrowing, the memories of umpire Ash Barrow, and his recount of the first moments after impact…

22 days ago · 1 like · Tony Wilson

Ange & The Boss screenings

We do have three daters for Ange & The Boss dates we can mention:

Thornbury Picture House - Q&A sessions with Cam and me - 5th December & 21st December

Paladino d”Oro, Palermo - 9th December

We are moving closer to an announcement about general release in the New Year!

Cheers Tony

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