Sean Abbot's return to cricket is truly inspiring

If sport is a metaphor for life, then this was one of the most inspiring moments in cricket. In fact, it was less about cricket and more about life as we know it. Sean Abbott bowled the fatal bouncer that killed Australian test cricketer Philip Hughes at the age of twenty-five. After Hughes’ death, and emotion-choked funeral, there were questions raised about how Abbott would deal with the consequences of what had happened.

Grief and guilt are interlinked. One can only imagine the kind of remorse he must have been going through, even though no one really blamed him. He did what he did within the rules of the game. Still, he was the one who’d bowled the ball. It was inadvertent "manslaughter", but, nonetheless, he was the doer of the act. Waqar Younis wondered if Abbott would ever bowl again. It was a tough time for Abbott. At any given moment after the tragedy, he was always surrounded by two or three people, so that he didn’t fall into an abyss of self-loathing and self-blame. Megan, Philip Hughes’ sister, bravely spent time with him, reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault. He was counselled by professionals. But at night, he was alone with his thoughts.

Grit

Then something extraordinary happened. Less than three weeks after the tragedy, Abbott returned to play cricket. The ground was the Sydney Cricket Ground, the same one where he had bowled the fatal bouncer. It was a Sheffield Shield match between Queensland and his team, New South Wales. Given the collective trauma everyone was going through, all players had been given the option of withdrawing from the game. Nic Maddinson, a close mate of Hughes, didn’t play.

Just the fact that Abbott was playing the match was remarkable. The captain gave him the ball in the 13th over. After four overpitched deliveries, he bowled a rising bouncer. He went on to finish with career best figures: six wickets from seven overs, giving away only 14 runs. He led his side to victory single-handedly. In doing so, Abbott showed that the only way to overcome grief is to get back to the game. It was the best tribute that he could have been paid to Hughes.

And it wasn’t just Abbott. In Adelaide, playing in the first test against India, captain Michael Clarke scored a century. Also a close mate of Hughes, a visibly distressed Clarke had just weeks earlier been overwhelmed by tears at Hughes’ funeral. He’d found it nearly impossible to finish his speech. To come back from that tunnel-vision state of mind, when life seems pointless, and cricket even more so, requires tremendous powers of overcoming, tremendous mental strength.

Bouncer

The incident has made us question the continued existence of the short-pitched delivery in the game. Is it really required? Hughes’ technical weakness against the bouncer was a known fact. In his first test against South Africa, the opposition, trying to exploit this weakness, repeatedly targeted the then 20-year-old’s body and head. The remarkable Hughes, who grew up on a rural banana farm, scored a duck, but returned with two back-to-back centuries in the next match.

The bouncer should not be scrapped. The use of the shock delivery is restricted in the shorter formats. In a game already loaded heavily in favour of the batsman, we need to preserve it, at least in the longest format. At the same time, the incident serves to remind us that cricket too is a dangerous and rough game, even though this was a freak occurrence. Cricket might not seem as injury-prone as boxing or Formula-1 racing but it is. It was also in November that Pakistani batsman Ahmed Shehzad, playing against New Zealand, was hit on the head by a bouncer and had to be hospitalized. Young Jamie Siddons had his jaw smashed by a rising Merv Hughes delivery in a Shield match. He never played cricket again.

Injuries

The documentary Fire in Babylon shows us the period when Sunil Gavaskar played the entire battery of West Indian fast bowlers, and Viv Richards played Lillee and Thomson, without any protective head gear. It seems like pure madness. Even now, cricketers suffer serious injuries. When a 5 and 3/4 ounce ball is chucked at you at speeds of more than 150 km/h, it’s not just the head that can get hurt. The body too takes a lot of blows, suffering purple bruises, contusions, and chipped and crushed bones. Cricket is far from a gentleman’s sport.

It is heartening to see that the first test match after the tragedy was played in the right aggressive spirit. The Indians bowled bouncers, so did the Aussies. Still, the memory of what happened is very fresh. When Mitchell Johnson hit new batsmen Virat Kohli with a bouncer first-up, the entire Australian team rushed up to Kohli to enquire about his well-being. Everyone’s hearts sank. On a different day, the opposition wouldn’t have bothered. That’s how much the game has changed. The trauma will remain, but Abbott and Clark, even Kohli with his century, have shown the way forward. The spirit of cricket is intact.