New fatherhood, collective grief and an endless summer on the road

Listening to the radio as I walked the footpaths of Leichhardt and Annandale with my newborn son wrapped to my chest, I still remember the update coming through.

It was November 25, 2014, and Nicholas, all of 10 days old, was drenched in my sweat as we rounded our neighbourhood.

Taking a break from covering the cricket during Australia’s 2015 Ashes tour of England.Credit:

The radio announcer was matter-of-fact. Phillip Hughes had collapsed after being struck with a ball while batting at the Sydney Cricket Ground and had been rushed to hospital.

Ordinarily, as the Herald’s senior cricket reporter at the time, I’d have been there to cover what was an important Sheffield Shield game leading up to a Test series between Australia and India, one in which Hughes was vying for a return to the national team.

But I was just beginning a period of paternity leave, eager to throw myself into parenthood for the first time and content to take a break from the cricket circuit that was my summer staple.

The gravity of the situation across town did not take long as I pounded the pavement with Nicholas that afternoon and returned to the streets the next day.

I didn’t know Hughes well, but my interactions with him and his country-boy charm were such that I had found myself hoping he would win a recall to the Australian team, as I had when he’d been dropped by selectors before.

Phillip Hughes’ generational talent was matched by his magnetic personality. Credit: Getty Images

His fatal felling left a sickness in my stomach, but not because of my minor connection with him. It was a feeling possibly shared by millions, thinking mainly about a life cut too short and the impact on his poor family, but also about the players and others who were at the ground, about those who were his mates and weren’t there, as well as in my case, about colleagues covering a story you’re not supposed to in sport.

My son and I spent weeks more exploring our suburbs, seeing many a cricket bat placed out on doorsteps in tribute to Hughes, before I rejoined the cricket caravan in the new year, following the Australian team on a seemingly endless summer. There was a World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, then a trip to the West Indies before it was off to England for the Ashes series, where my wife Melanie and eight-month-old Nicholas joined me for a month.

It wasn’t easy for Mel as she cared for Nicholas – who could cry indefatigably and didn’t fancy sleeping – mostly on her own in foreign environs while I was out watching cricket and chasing stories in Essex, Kent, Cardiff or wherever we were.

But we also have some great memories of our first overseas adventure.

The Sunday roast and champagne in a cosy countryside Welsh pub while Nicholas snoozed, and the Wimbledon men’s final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer played on a screen. Blissfully lazing around on a blanket spread out behind the main arena at Lord’s as the sun beamed down during a lunch break of the Test match there. Morning strolls around Kensington Gardens.

Our younger son, Francis, likes to say he was with us in England, too, in Mum’s tummy. Not quite, mate.

Reminded of the fragility and preciousness of life, as the cricket world had been months earlier, it was just good to be together.

The mixed emotions of that long summer, of new fatherhood and collective grief, came back to me as Hughes was honoured a decade on from his passing.

Nicholas, now 10, stretches up to the top of my chest these days, and his brother isn’t far behind him.

They’re not much into cricket, but I’m lucky to have them.

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