Phil Hughes

PJ Hughes c Guptill b Martin

Maybe if you’re very lucky this Christmas, you’ll get a gift that is so good, you simply don’t know what to do with it. That’s how we feel about Phil Hughes being caught by Martin Guptill off the bowling of Chris Martin for the fourth time in four innings. It’s so perfect, there’s really nothing to add.

We’ve heard of bowlers having a bunny before, but not fielders.

Picture the scene:

New Australia coach, Mickey Arthur, is wearing a Chris Martin mask. Phil Hughes is padded up with bat in hand and he’s standing in front of some stumps. Behind him, at an angle, is a life-size cut-out of Martin Guptill.

“Okay,” says Arthur. “In this drill, what you have to do is avoid being caught out by Martin Guptill. You can hit the ball in the air through 350 degrees, but if it goes in that sliver towards Guptill, you’re out. If you keep the ball on the floor, you can hit it anywhere. You can also leave it – and for the purposes of this drill, if the ball hits the stumps, you will not be considered out. All you have to do is not hit the ball in the air at Martin Guptill.”

Phil Hughes nods, with a slightly frightened look in his eye and gets into his stance. Mickey Arthur then gently underarms the ball to him, aiming at his legs. Hughes backs away and slices it into the middle of the Guptill cut-out. “Keep working at it,” cries Michael Clarke from somewhere nearby.

By the way, regarding Australia’s batting collapses, we were wrong to blame the top order. If you lose eight wickets for 74 runs, you can’t blame the opener who finishes with 123 not out.

Technically we haven’t seen Phil Hughes’ latest dismissal

But only technically.

“I’d love him to be in the team,” said Ross Taylor before the second Test.

“I think his technique has improved out of sight,” said Michael Clarke.

“If Hughes plays in Tasmania then obviously Chris Martin will be bowling at him and hopefully Martin Guptill takes a third catch too,” said Ross Taylor.

Australia v New Zealand, second Test: PJ Hughes c Guptill b Martin 4.

Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball coverage says he tried to defend with an angled bat. We assume.

Phillip Hughes and the short ball

An opening batsman who averages over 50 in Test and first-class cricket has not been ‘found out’ if he makes a right royal hash of a couple of short balls.

Phillip Hughes had three Test innings in England in 2009 and got dropped. Had Don Bradman been found out in 1936 when he made 38, 0 and 0 in successive innings against England? No, of course not. Three of his last four innings in that series were 270, 212 and 169.

Phillip Hughes is no Bradman, but he didn’t get into Test cricket with some huge, pulsating, neon Achilles’ heel that had previously gone undetected. It might be worth bowling short at him to test him out, but we’re sick of reading articles where it’s made out that he’s a walking wicket.

Three dismissals takes just three balls out of the many thousands faced by Hughes. He’s smeared far more balls to the fence than he’s popped to the keeper.

Don’t get us wrong. We hope he peppers the slip cordon in brief, pathetic visits to the crease, but we don’t think it’ll happen. You’re flawless or incompetent in the eyes of many, but no-one in international cricket is either of those things – not since India stopped picking Ajit Agarkar anyway.

Phil Hughes isn’t playing

A few weeks ago, back when you couldn’t take a crap without someone knocking on the door and telling you how great he was, we said that Phil Hughes might just be a massive disappointment. Being dropped for Shane Watson is probably classed as disappointing.

But don’t worry. The stumpy little flailer will surely return for the next Test because Watson’s a nailed-on certainty to rupture his pancreas at some point over the next few days.

The Andrew Strauss catch of Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes edged a Flintoff delivery to the slips. Andrew Strauss scooped it up, but did it graze the turf? The umpires didn’t refer it, but if they had have done, Hughes would certainly have been given not out.

The heart bleeds. The Australian view is that Hughes would definitely have gone on and made 260. Our own view is that if you’re in the habit of edging balls to the slips, you’re not batting that well.

Of course, neither argument can hold sway because it’s all supposition. However, what we do know is that this kind of pedantic nit-picking and straw-clutching is exactly the kind of thing that gave rise to the term ‘whinging Poms’.

Was Phil Hughes actually out? Look in t’book.

Phil Hughes might just be a massive disappointment

We hope he isn’t, because it’s exciting when unusual players have an impact and it’s good for your side to beat one featuring great players, but everyone has gone a bit mental about Hughes.

He’s played a couple of seasons of domestic cricket, one Test series and a bit of second division county cricket. He’s been exceptional, but his is not a record that matches up to Ricky Ponting’s for example. If Phil Hughes were to get ‘found out’, it would most likely happen in Test cricket and if that did happen, it would be unlikely to happen in the first Test series in which he played. It might happen in the second.

He’ll probably score a good few runs, but let’s see, shall we? Australia have a handful of other batsmen to worry about, after all.

Matthew Hayden approves of Phil Hughes

Matthew Hayden has given Phil Hughes, his successor as Australia’s opener, his seal of approval.

We know what you’re all wondering: How has Hayden expressed this? The answer, of course, is ‘badly’:

“He’s got all the evidence and the skillsets he needs. His humbling personality and how respectful he is are two elements of the baggy green culture.”

Issues

• Evidence of what?
• ‘Skillset’ is a word that needs stamping out
• If ’skillset’ is a word, it refers to a set of skills. A person has a skillset, not multiple skillsets. The word Hayden is after here is ’skills’.
• ‘Humbling’ means ‘to make humble’, so presumably Phil Hughes swans around the place like some sort of emperor.
• There is no ‘baggy green culture’. It’s a hat, you headgear-fetishising knobhead.

In summary: Matthew Hayden still loves to add extra bits to normal words to try and make himself sound like he knows something, blissfully unaware that in reality it marks him out as a self-important dullard.

Phillip Hughes in England

After scores of 118, 65 not out and 74 last week, today’s 99 not out marks the moment when we move away from admiring an exceptional young Antipodean talent and towards being sick to the back teeth, the front teeth and tonsils of a winnetty-faced, cork-hatted bastard.

Phillip Hughes is getting on our wick and he’s only been in the country for a week.

Phil Hughes needs to work on his timing

Phil Hughes has hit a duck, a fifty and now a hundred. Where does he go next?

Well he might want to consider scoring a hundred on a weekday. People do stuff at weekends and his runs might not get as much attention.

On a weekday, people come back from their lunch breaks and spend half an hour or so easing back into work by reading cricket news on the internet. It’s not work, but it’s not visible slacking off. It’s a happy compromise.

This part of the day is when cricketing reputations are made. Phil Hughes should target it.

Phil Hughes scores runs when others don’t

Those of you who haven’t irreparably damaged your memories through inadequate preparation may remember that we told you this about Phil Hughes the day before yesterday.

Phil Hughes top-scored for Australia with 75. The next highest score was 37.