Phillip Hughes Inquest

[honestbharani]

Yeah this.

I think as fans of cricket we can get a little defensive on aspects of the game such as short pitched bowling. Theres every reason it should be questioned. I personally believe that upon receiving all the evidence they'll lean towards the tactic of short pitched bowling WAS used on Hughes by the bowlers and this a legitimate tactic of the sport that is statistically unlikely to cause serious harm. That Hughes was the victim of a freak accident and some recommendations or new requirements for kit may be made.

Cricket isn't sacred, questions should be asked.

Sorry mate... The very first question they should have ever asked when diving down this rabbit hole is, was anything out of the ordinary, in cricketing terms, done that led to this tragedy? And the answer is No. It is shameful that this prosecutor who seems to have less grasp of cricket than even Burgey is getting people like Tom Cooper worked up.. I mean, Phil Hughes as a batsman was not very good against short pitched bowling and hence they bowled it there to him. If he has a weakness outside off stump, they would have tried to bowl there. The very first question should be, even if the short ball was a tactic, was it a legitimate and legal one? And the answer is yes. Then why put these guys, esp. Cooper who I am sure could not have yet recovered from this tragedy, through all this. The very reports seem to suggest there is some glory hunting happening at least from that prosecution lawyer.


I am all for trying to come up with better helmet alignments and ensuring better and faster access to medical facilities at all state level games etc. Those will save lives, but come on, questioning if there was sledging in an Aussie cricket match... SMH.

 

[OverratedSanity]

The thing that really disturbed me was this particilar line of questioning...the fact that they were asked whether they sledged Hughes or bowled lots of bouncers at him. Apparently, the players said they only bowled 23 bouncers and didn't sledge him. But let's say they had sledged him and had bowled 2-3 bouncers an over at him... what path would the line of questioning have taken then and what conclusions would they have reached? I find that very disturbing.

 

[Burgey]

HB, you're looking at it from a cricketing perspective. That's not what the inquest is for. Is it really that hard to get into your head? They aren't thinking about it from the perspective of the game, they're thinking about it from a legal perspective.

Jesus ****ing Christ, how hard can it be to get that proposition through your head? There's ****s who sit on here who can work out some mediocre idiot's batting or bowling averages to the 27th decimal point and come up with some ridiculous esoteric argument as to why that means they were better or worse than someone else, but so simple a proposition as the fact the inquest is a legal process not a cricketing one is beyond them.

I swear it's like conversing with Rain Man half the time.

 

[Burgey]

The thing that really disturbed me was this particilar line of questioning...the fact that they were asked whether they sledged Hughes or bowled lots of bouncers at him. Apparently, the players said they only bowled 23 bouncers and didn't sledge him. But let's say they had sledged him and had bowled 2-3 bouncers an over at him... what path would the line of questioning have taken then and what conclusions would they have reached? I find that very disturbing.

They would have been asked why they sledged him; what was the purpose of saying what they did; what was the reason they bowled so many short balls at him, why did they think it would work, etc etc.

Without going into a mind reading exercise, the answers would presumably have been to increase the chances of getting him out because we perceived he had a weakness against the short ball.

Then they would probably have been asked whether the thought of him being injured or killed crossed their mind, they probably would have said no, and that would likely have been the end of it.

 

[SteveNZ]

HB, you're looking at it from a cricketing perspective. That's not what the inquest is for. Is it really that hard to get into your head? They aren't thinking about it from the perspective of the game, they're thinking about it from a legal perspective.

Jesus ****ing Christ, how hard can it be to get that proposition through your head? There's ****s who sit on here who can work out some mediocre idiot's batting or bowling averages to the 27th decimal point and come up with some ridiculous esoteric argument as to why that means they were better or worse than someone else, but so simple a proposition as the fact the inquest is a legal process not a cricketing one is beyond them.

I swear it's like conversing with Rain Man half the time.

But once it's ascertained that the laws of the game allow two bouncers per over, and nothing NSW did was outside the bounds of this, how can we go legally further? Who has anything to answer for? Cricket has already reviewed itself on safety of helmets and short-pitched bowling, as far as I'm aware. I've never set foot in a court room in my life, so forgive me, but once it's established through the players, Simon Taufel's review etc that no illegalities of the sport were committed, it's just a bunch of lawyers keeping the hourly rate ticking over and a family having to suffer even further. And if we need to interrogate Doug Bollinger on whether he told anyone he was going to kill them, can we please get an inquest into every bowler who's ever said it and have them up on attempted murder? I mean, Dale Steyn, Jeff Thomson etc are on record saying this. Bring Michael Clarke into it too for intent to cause grievous bodily harm. This is all tongue in cheek of sorts, but unless someone's out there firing a house brick at someone, I really feel like this is all unnecessarily harrowing on the Hughes family, for someone like Tom Cooper and anyone else innocently involved. Even Brad Haddin, who trust me I think is the biggest C out, he's having his name dragged through it for no pertinent reason.

It seems insane to me that all this is happening to cricket when sports like boxing, MMA, motor racing etc continue to exist.

 

[SteveNZ]

They would have been asked why they sledged him; what was the purpose of saying what they did; what was the reason they bowled so many short balls at him, why did they think it would work, etc etc.

Without going into a mind reading exercise, the answers would presumably have been to increase the chances of getting him out because we perceived he had a weakness against the short ball.

Then they would probably have been asked whether the thought of him being injured or killed crossed their mind, they probably would have said no, and that would likely have been the end of it.

And what is the point of the exercise of asking why he was sledged and why they bowled bouncers? To pin culpability on someone? If they answer yeah, we said we wanted to get one through his helmet and get ready for a broken skull, that sort of thing...what's the outcome of that? Sledging is banned by the state? The ability to press charges for any bowler who causes injury through what is deemed to be legal in their sport? As I say, I'm not a member of the bar or anything but I am absolutely clueless to what that contributes to the game and society.

 

[SteveNZ]

Obviously you might've answered this earlier in the thread, apologies if so.

 

[Athlai]

It seems insane to me that all this is happening to cricket when sports like boxing, MMA, motor racing etc continue to exist.

The death of a motor racer in Australia resulted in an inquest that ended up with the coroner recommending forward head restraints, and these were then made mandatory by the motor racing board in AU (in vehicles where this is possible).

Right now we are only looking at the process of the Inquest, which doesn't take anything about the sport for granted. The results will almost certainly be fairly sensible.

 

[Daemon]

Really not sure how players potentially saying that kind of stuff is relevant tbh.

This is so weird. I don't see why sledging is even relevant to the inquest anyway? And why does the number of bouncers bowled even matter? If they had bowled 53 instead of 23, would it have been seen as something untoward or malicious?

My fullest sympathies are with the family and I can't begin to imagine what they have been through.........but that's the game of cricket. Players do get targeted like that, Hughes himself was in the '09 Ashes as soon as there was a sniff that he may have a weakness to the short stuff.

It doesn't sound like it was according to Taufels comments, but what if he was targeted?? Surely they can't find fault in it??

I don't like that Bollinger is being questioned on whether he said "I'm going to kill you" Apparently he has vehemently denied it but why should he have to defend himself like that?? What if he had of said it?? Something that probably gets said on cricket fields all over the world every game.........everyone knows this so why is it being looked at by this panel and reported in the media??

Same goes for Brad Haddin having to deny as captain he was not in charge of a short pitched barrage on Hughes..........what if he was?? It is a legitimate tactic that everyone (including batsmen) accept is a big part of the game we love.

Makes me ask, and what if he was? I mean, it's an entirely legit cricketing tactic to make a bloke who's looking comfortable sniff some more leather for a while. What if the NSW boys, knowing Hughes's history with the stuff at his leg-stump, decided at lunch that they'd up the short ball rate? Who's then responsible for what happened?

The thing that really disturbed me was this particilar line of questioning...the fact that they were asked whether they sledged Hughes or bowled lots of bouncers at him. Apparently, the players said they only bowled 23 bouncers and didn't sledge him. But let's say they had sledged him and had bowled 2-3 bouncers an over at him... what path would the line of questioning have taken then and what conclusions would they have reached? I find that very disturbing.

But once it's ascertained that the laws of the game allow two bouncers per over, and nothing NSW did was outside the bounds of this, how can we go legally further? Who has anything to answer for?

And what is the point of the exercise of asking why he was sledged and why they bowled bouncers? To pin culpability on someone? If they answer yeah, we said we wanted to get one through his helmet and get ready for a broken skull, that sort of thing...what's the outcome of that?

I think we've made our point, guys

 

[Burgey]

Steve, I don't disagree with the sentiment you're raising, but they're looking into causes of Hughes' death. Asking players if they said or planned things is awful because it brings everything back for them, but it is also the only way the inquest can exclude intent to harm as a cause of what happened. Whether the questions were asked in a way or in a tone that was unseemly to us or to the players is not really relevant to the exercise they're going through. Rulings things out is as important as ruling things in.

So if the lawyers asks Bollinger whether he said he'd kill Hughes that day, and Bollinger says no, the lawyer would presumably then ask wtte of "I suggest you said it, and Cooper heard you say it?" Once Cooper denies it was said, that's as far as it can go. There's no evidence to suggest he said it.

If he admitted to saying it (and he didn't, thank goodness) there would probably have been a line of questions about why he said, what he meant by it and whether he actually intended to do what he said he did. It's an exercise in ruling things out as much as it is ruling things in.

I know what you mean re other sports. I suppose the difference with sports like MMA and boxing is there's an express consent to being belted in the head. If it were to ever come to it (and I doubt it will) then there'd be a similar argument raised re cricket and bouncers - it's implied as part of the game that people will bowl short at you.

In case anyone's wondering, Abbott provided a statement to the inquest today, rather than giving evidence, which is pretty sensible from everyone involved. Details of his statement are in this report:

Phillip Hughes inquest: NSW bowler Sean Abbott recalls match tragedy - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Burgey own zone in this thread.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

I think the problem people have with the inquest isn't actually with the inquest, it's more to do with the media beat up of it, and have misdirected anger. The front page of the Telegraph yesterday was ****ing despicable, for instance.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah the media has been pretty bloody awful tbh.

 

[SteveNZ]

I think the problem people have with the inquest isn't actually with the inquest, it's more to do with the media beat up of it, and have misdirected anger. The front page of the Telegraph yesterday was ****ing despicable, for instance.

Or the abhorrent nature of the approach of the lawyers involved. That's where my anger lies.

 

[Adders]

Burgey, I've understood as much as my non legal mind can of what you have posted in this thread, and I think it's great that you have contributed from the legal side btw.

But what I can't get my head around regarding the questioning of the players is.........

They asked Dougie if he had said he was going to kill Hughes and he said no he didn't, once others corroborated his statement that was it. But what was the purpose of this question?? What if Doug had said yes, I did say it?? Where were the suits going to go with it then?? If he had of admitted to it........was he then going to be in any strife?

Same with Haddin and the short pitched bowling, where was it all headed if he had said, yep our plans formulated at lunch was to bomb him with chin music.

It seems to me (yes, from a cricketing view point) that either yes or no answers to these questions goes nowhere towards explaining the tragedy nor towards ever preventing it happening again. So what was the point of them?

 

[honestbharani]

HB, you're looking at it from a cricketing perspective. That's not what the inquest is for. Is it really that hard to get into your head? They aren't thinking about it from the perspective of the game, they're thinking about it from a legal perspective.

Jesus ****ing Christ, how hard can it be to get that proposition through your head? There's ****s who sit on here who can work out some mediocre idiot's batting or bowling averages to the 27th decimal point and come up with some ridiculous esoteric argument as to why that means they were better or worse than someone else, but so simple a proposition as the fact the inquest is a legal process not a cricketing one is beyond them.

I swear it's like conversing with Rain Man half the time.

Lol.. y getting so precious? I think everyone here understands what an inquest is and why it is conducted. But the "accident" under consideration here is something that happened at sport. And as such, it is not too much to expect the people involved to first show some rudimentary understanding of the game itself and its rules and legalities and then start questioning if there was anything that was beyond that. Simon Taufel, one of the most respected cricket officials of all time, had studied the entire footage and given his comments. Why still drag out the unfortunate non-striker and question him, in what is being reported as moderately aggressive terms, about sledging and short ball tactics when neither is really illegal or rare. If they could have considered Taufel's reports, as well as actual footage, as well as various interviews with stakeholders who may not have been directly involved, they could have formed the conclusions about this from there itself. The line of questioning, as others keep pointing out, seems to be inextricably leading towards placing some kind of culpability or blame on the fielding side and their tactics when it is obviously not true and that just annoys me as a cricket fan, esp. given what those poor cricketers must have already gone through.

 

[Burgey]

Adders: No I don't think an answer would have been enough. But they would probably have then gone down the road of exploring what they meant, whether there was an intention to hurt him/ kill him/ bowl at his head to inflict an injury. IMO (and it's only an opinion from someone who isn't there watching all this i)t would really only be trouble if:

- the players admitted they intended to try and hurt/ seriously injure him or absent admissions there was extraneous evidence of it;
- the tactics involved meant a departure from what is otherwise considered normal tactics in the course of a game (leave aside that the umpires can step in for a moment);
- that there was evidence of an excessive amount of bowling which could be said to be designed to injure him (Taufel and the umps say no to that, obviously)
- he was then hit and killed in the course of carrying out the deliberate plan to injure him or a plan carried out with reckless indifference to his safety.

If, for example, the bloke who hit him had been doing the Curtley Ambrose and deliberately overstepping by about four feet and bowling bouncers or beamers at him, then there would be some sort of justification for looking further into it maybe.

Should be said that the bloke who asked the questions of Haddin and Dougeh was the family's barrister, not counsel assisting. She asked her questions of the players after Greg Melick had put the questions to them first.

Greg Melick is a silk who has worked with CA as a special investigator since 2000, fwiw. He's also the Tasmanian Integrity Commissioner and a Major General in the Army Reserve. He's no stranger to cricket or to investigations like this.

Counsel assisting has this arvo recommended the Coroner make no finding that any comment made on the day he was hit exacerbated risk of injury to Hughes. The Coroner will make up his mind about that at the end of the whole thing, taking into account all the evidence.

It's all just really sad, tbh.

 

[Burgey]

Lol.. y getting so precious? I think everyone here understands what an inquest is and why it is conducted. But the "accident" under consideration here is something that happened at sport. And as such, it is not too much to expect the people involved to first show some rudimentary understanding of the game itself and its rules and legalities and then start questioning if there was anything that was beyond that. Simon Taufel, one of the most respected cricket officials of all time, had studied the entire footage and given his comments. Why still drag out the unfortunate non-striker and question him, in what is being reported as moderately aggressive terms, about sledging and short ball tactics when neither is really illegal or rare. If they could have considered Taufel's reports, as well as actual footage, as well as various interviews with stakeholders who may not have been directly involved, they could have formed the conclusions about this from there itself. The line of questioning, as others keep pointing out, seems to be inextricably leading towards placing some kind of culpability or blame on the fielding side and their tactics when it is obviously not true and that just annoys me as a cricket fan, esp. given what those poor cricketers must have already gone through.

Why don't you have a look at the facts mate? The bloke asking the questions is the family's lawyer and he's also a special investigator retained by CA. I'd wager he knows as much about cricket, if not more, than all of us on here who love it so much.

Taufel is a witness. An expert witness, but just another witness. He can be questioned about his evidence just like anyone else can be, like a doctor, an accountant or a lay person. His opinion isn't definitive in deciding what's what in all this, much as we might like it to be.

 

[honestbharani]

Those are "facts" and that short pitched bowling and sledging are common place in cricket, esp. Australian cricket, is not?

 

[honestbharani]

My point here is simple. If there is a way to device better head gear for batsmen and even fielders to help minimize such accidents, I am all for it. If there is a way to ensure better emergency medical treatment and specific training on what to do in case such an unfortunate injury happens again, so much the better. If there is a way the court can rule that these need to be made compulsory across all levels of cricket in Australia, fantastic. But if the inquest is honestly going to consider soap opera style questioning - "Did you sledge him? Did you bounce him 'coz he was hitting you all over the park?" - come on...