Hughes’ 2009 feats hard to forget

It was a maiden Test tour that was always going to take some beating.

Phillip Hughes became the youngest man to score a century in each innings of a Test in 2009.

Hughes set the bar high, taking apart South Africa’s attack featuring Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel to clinch a series win.

Coupled with an unusual technique, it was going to be hard to forget the 20-year-old.

National selectors certainly never have, despite dropping him during the Ashes in England later that year.

Hughes was recalled for the SCG Test against Pakistan soon after.

It was a trend that continued over the next four years.

The left-hander played 26 Tests, hopping up and down the batting order and in and out of the XI while shifting from NSW to South Australia.

“He’s probably as unlucky as anyone has been over the last little bit,” chief selector Rod Marsh said on Monday.

He was on the cusp of a fourth Test recall when struck at the SCG on Tuesday, having toured South Africa and the UAE this year as a reserve batsman.

Hughes is a somewhat divisive figure among the public because of this.

He warrants another chance or has already had one too many – there’s little grey area in debates around the BBQ or TV during summer.

But the same can not be said in Australian cricket circles.

The 25-year-old, who grew up on a banana farm in Macksville, is well liked and well respected by a diverse range of figures.

He has scored 26 first-class centuries, but remains shy.

Hughes is not all that comfortable with the spotlight that has followed him since becoming the youngest Australian to score a ton in a Sheffield Shield final, intensifying in 2009 when he was compared with Brian Lara.

“I’ve been through a lot of highs and lows through my career and it’s about pushing forward,” Hughes noted in an interview with ESPNcricinfo earlier this year, saying time on the family farm helps.

As cricketers around the nation learned of Tuesday’s freak accident, they spoke in shocked tones and tweeted well wishes.

“Fighter” and “fiercely determined” were oft-uttered phrases.

Hughes earned the reputation at the crease, where the runs kept coming as his unusual approach was picked apart by bowlers and pundits.

The opener enhanced it by fighting back from a handful of confidence-sapping form slumps that threatened to end his Test career, scoring a mountain of Shield runs in 2013-14.

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