Phillip Hughes Inquest

[Burgey]

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...

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the first thing the court will want to establish is that it was an accident.

And yes short pitched bowling is common and so is sledging. But if someone says "I'm gonna kill you" and then the bloke gets killed, you can probably rest assured that's something the deceased's family will want delved into, as will their lawyer and the court.

 

[Adders]

From what Burgey is saying it is the familly lawyer asking these questions at the behest of the family. Even though we may feel they are inappropriate and unessasary I for one am not going to sit here and lay any criticism at the familly..........god knows if it was my son i dare say I would be angry and looking for someone or something to blame.

 

[SteveNZ]

Looking for someone to blame is understandable, but not appropriate in this case. Sean Abbott did not deserve the suffering he so obviously felt. It's not an eye for an eye in this case, guys were playing cricket as it has always been played, especially in that country. I completely get why the family would pursue it but I believe if they went to a psychologist rather than a lawyer, they could get a lot further for a lot less money (presuming their barrister is not funded by the coroner). I believe they met with Abbott after the tragedy and so have some empathy for his situation. It'd be more appropriate to make sure helmets are safe as they can be, and preach to cricketers that while short-pitched bowling is part of the game, there is a line that they need to be cognisant of at all times.

 

[Red]

I'm changing the topic slightly here, and I don't want to be macabre at all, but this process is intriguing to say the least. What if Bodyline had been played out now, and someone (let's just say Oldfield) was hit and killed, and there was an inquiry like this.

An unusual company sat down to dine at the Piccadilly Grill Rooms in August 1932. Two of the four men were amateurs: Jardine and Arthur Carr, captain of Nottinghamshire. The other two made up Carr’s new-ball attack at Trent Bridge: Bill Voce, a bearish left-arm quick, and Larwood himself, the man whose extreme pace made Bodyline possible.

Little time was devoted to discussing the menu and wine list. Even the food lay largely untouched on the plates. It was Bradman they had come to dissect. “I told Jardine I thought Bradman had flinched and he said he knew that,” Larwood wrote. “Finally Jardine asked me if I thought I could bowl on the leg stump making the ball come up into the body all the time so that Bradman had to play his shots to leg.

Everyone knows these sorts of plans happen. They probably happened with Hughes. They almost certainly did. FC teams aren't running out without specific plans for the opposition. If these plans are to bowl a tactic, and someone dies from it, where do things stand, legally? Who is the onus on? Everyone who's ever played cricket knows there's a risk, and the quicker the bowler the bigger the risk. But surely theres some sort of indemnity in that everyone who plays cricket knows the risks, so you step on to the field acknowledging those risks.

This might seem rambling ****, and it's clear I don't have a concise legal mind!

 

[Shri]

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.

So we might be looking at some sort of extra equipment that protects the neck made mandatory then?

 

[Top_Cat]

A recommendation like that is a real possibility, I think. However, when you have as big a voice as Ali Cook openly refusing to use them ostensibly because he believes it affects his ability to track the ball, the debate over whether should be compulsory becomes more complicated.

 

[Adders]

I'm changing the topic slightly here, and I don't want to be macabre at all, but this process is intriguing to say the least. What if Bodyline had been played out now, and someone (let's just say Oldfield) was hit and killed, and there was an inquiry like this.

I was actually thinking the same thing just yesterday. I watched the Bodyline TV series for the umpteenth time last week.......first time I've seen it though since the Hughes tragedy. Watching it made me realise that what happened to The Prince has changed my perspective quite a lot. I always held Jardine in high regard and never had any problem with that series or his tactics.........but watching it recently was the first time I ever had any sympathy for the Aussies over it (probably just getting a bit soft in my old age TBH!!)

Douglas Jardine was a hard bastard and clearly he didn't care if he hurt anyone in his quest for the Ashes.......but kill someone?? I really doubt that ever entered his head.

But for sure if there did happen to be a fatality in that series I don't think it would be hard for the legals in any inquest to show there was intent to harm. Old DJ could have been in some deep strife I reckon.

 

[Gnske]

Think the entire England squad would have been lynched from the Adelaide member's pavilion to chants of "That's just not cricket"

Probably wouldn't have made it off the field without getting murdered.

 

[morgieb]

If Oldfield had died there's a reasonable chance that cricket as we know it wouldn't exist.

 

[Red]

Think the entire England squad would have been lynched from the Adelaide member's pavilion to chants of "That's just not cricket"

Probably wouldn't have made it off the field without getting murdered.

The English players certainly felt threatened tangibly with the situation as it was.

 

[Son Of Coco]

It's not a witch hunt ffs.

It's an investigation into what happened to try and see what can be done to improve safety and improve responses to on-field injuries.

A bloke DIED ffs. How and why that happened and what can be done to try to ensure it doesn't happen again is more important than whether someone gets shaken up by questions asked of them which they might find hurtful or offensive. What's more, if the Coroner thought any of the questions asked of the players were along lines which could lead to some level of criminal or civil responsibility for the death being laid at their feet, they have to issue a warning and then provide a certificate to the witness that their evidence won't be used to prosecute them or used against them in later proceedings.

No such warning was given, and if the coroner had even a sliver of thought that there might be something self-incriminating about to be said, they would always err on the side of giving the warning.

The inquest was most likely established by the Coroner at the request of the Hughes family. The Coroner isn't a fame hungry lawyer, they're a magistrate, in fact any magistrate has the power to act as coroner. It's part of their job, and not a fun part.

I just can't see how trying to ascertain whether a certain sledge was made, or whether bowling short was a tactic serves any purpose. Sledging has nothing to do with player safety and the only option to prevent short-pitched bowling from leading to a death once in a blue moon would be to either ban it completely, or make the batsman wear jousting chains.

Edit: If I'd read the rest of the thread, I would have noticed you'd already replied to similar comments...several times in fact. Ignore me.

 

[mr_mister]

is the Bodyline series actually worth a watch? I've heard its depiction of Bradman is nothing close to reality

 

[fredfertang]

is the Bodyline series actually worth a watch? I've heard its depiction of Bradman is nothing close to reality

Tricky question - it has a skewed Australian perspective, plenty of historical inaccuracies (admittedly in the main relatively minor) and the actor who plays Jardine the child has an Australian accent which always made me laugh, and the only decent bowling action belongs to the actor who played Wally Hammond

But despite all that there is a huge amount of television out there that is much, much worse so if you haven't seen it give it a watch - I think the whole series is on youtube isn't it?

 

[zaremba]

Ah **** Burgey, have just emailed you about this and now I see you're the conductor of a whole ****ing thread about it. Sorry.

 

[Biryani Pillow]

is the Bodyline series actually worth a watch? I've heard its depiction of Bradman is nothing close to reality

It was several hours of crap.

 

[zaremba]

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the first thing the court will want to establish is that it was an accident.

And yes short pitched bowling is common and so is sledging. But if someone says "I'm gonna kill you" and then the bloke gets killed, you can probably rest assured that's something the deceased's family will want delved into, as will their lawyer and the court.

But even if you assume that a bowler, consumed with rage at a batsman, does indeed intend to kill him, and so bowls bouncers at him, and then happens to kill him by the sort of freak occurrence that happened in Hughes' case, would that represent any sort of criminal or civil legal wrong (or even enough to lead to any other verdict at an inquest than one of accidental death)? I'm not sure it would.

 

[Burgey]

From a civil POV they're probably ok, with volenti and the limitation on liability for injuries caused through inherently dangerous activities, but if it was deliberate then it would be an assault and they could be sued I suppose. From a criminal perspective, they're probably ok too unless they did something ridiculous like bowl a beamer at him off 16 yards or something.

 

[Burgey]

I just can't see how trying to ascertain whether a certain sledge was made, or whether bowling short was a tactic serves any purpose. Sledging has nothing to do with player safety and the only option to prevent short-pitched bowling from leading to a death once in a blue moon would be to either ban it completely, or make the batsman wear jousting chains.

Edit: If I'd read the rest of the thread, I would have noticed you'd already replied to similar comments...several times in fact. Ignore me.

Agree with what you're saying btw. The counsel assisting the inquest has said they will be asking the coroner to ignore anything to do with the sledging as there's no link to Hughes' death from it. I have my own theory as to why the family's barrister might have raised it but I don't want to go into it publicly as I have no evidence to support it other than a hunch on my part.

 

[Son Of Coco]

is the Bodyline series actually worth a watch? I've heard its depiction of Bradman is nothing close to reality

I think the main thing to take out of it is that English players were, always have been, and still are, ****s.

 

[Burgey]

Submissions today. Expect some huffing and puffing about spirit of the game, sledging and the rah rah old school gentlemen's approach to cricket from certain quarters.