Innocence of cricket went immediately after Hughes' demise: Shane Watson

Former Australian all-rounder Shane Watson was known to be great friends with late Phil Hughes. It has been three years since the death of Hughes but the memories continue to live on forever. Recently, Watson revealed how the death of Hughes in a way impacted his cricket career. The incident instilled fear in his mind and that eventually saw him quit the longest form of the game.

It was a couple of years later that Shane Watson retired from all forms of the game. The camaraderie between Hughes and Watson is quite old. Hughes received his NSW call up at the bare age of 19. In his third First Class match, he was dismissed by Shane Watson, who was playing for Queensland. A year later, Watson switched to NSW and became Hughes’ teammate.

The duo went on to play together for Australia. In the match when Hughes had his sad demise after being hit by a bouncer, Watson stood at the slips during the incident. He recalled how the incident changed the face of the game forever. After the incident, the fear of fast bowling crept in. The aggression of the players took a heavy toll as well.

“I didn’t have fear, honestly, up until Phil Hughes got killed. Fast bowling was always my strength … I was fielding at first slip when Phil got hit, so it wasn’t until that moment that fear came into my game massively, and that was one of the reasons why against fast bowling in my career, in my performance with the bat started to really dive, because I had no idea how to deal with it,” Shane Watson told Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

“The innocence of the game of cricket went immediately. I always knew that you could get hurt of course … if a ball went through my helmet I could fracture my face or my eye socket or jaw or whatever it was but never ever contemplated that you could actually get killed,” he added.

‘What if it was me’

Shane Watson further added that the incident affected him deeply. He started to think at how things would have shaped up had he been in Hughes’ place on that wretched day. The thought of his young family crossed his mind. Things could never really be same again. Watson ended his Test career in a premature way following the incident.

“I had a two-year-old son at that stage. Will was two and just the thought that went through and continued to go through my mind for a long period of time, was ‘what if that was me?’. Like what happens to my family, not just my mum and dad, but my wife and my son,” Watson remarked.

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