Former national men’s coach Darren Lehmann has disclosed a long-kept secret 10 years on from Phillip Hughes’ tragic death, revealing selectors had decided the young batter would replace Chris Rogers in the Australian Test side.
When Hughes was felled by a bouncer in a sickening moment during a Sheffield Shield match at the SCG, plans to tell Rogers and make it public that Hughes had been recalled were put on hold.
On November 25, 2014, while batting for South Australia in a Shield match against NSW, the 25-year-old was injured while attempting to play a hook shot.
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The match was abandoned, Hughes was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst, and while surrounded by family and his close friends two days later, his life support was switched off.
The Lehmann-coached Australian team was scheduled to begin a four-Test series against India in Brisbane a week later, and it had been decided that Hughes would partner David Warner at the top of the order.
Phillip Hughes at the crease during his 26-Test career. Getty
“Yeah, we’d had a meeting, already,” Lehmann told Code Sports this week.
“That was all done and we were about to tell Bucky (Chris) Rogers he was going to make way out of the team.”
Hughes was not out on 63 in the Shield match when he was taken to hospital.
If he had taken part in the first Test of the 2014-15 summer, he would have played his 27th Test and his first since the second match of the 2013 UK Ashes series, in which he batted at No.4.
Aaron Finch (left) and Darren Lehmann departing St Vincent’s Hospital on the day Phillip Hughes’ life support was switched off. Getty
In the second Test of his career, against South Africa in Durban in 2009, Hughes chalked up scores of 115 and 160, becoming the youngest batter in history to score two centuries in a single Test.
The left-hander from Macksville, a small town situated between Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour, was a prolific first-class batter with a swashbuckling cut shot, square drive and cover drive.
He made his Test debut against South Africa in Johannesburg in 2009.
The first Test of the 2014-15 series against India was postponed until five days later and was played at Adelaide Oval instead of the Gabba.
The tributes to Hughes during the Adelaide Test were plentiful and deeply emotional.