Nasser Hussain is one of few cricketers with a skerrick of understanding when it comes to the confronting decision facing Australia’s Test squad.

In 2002, Hussain was captaining England when he walked out to bat on day three of a Test in Wellington.

At lunch Hussain returned to the rooms and was told emerging allrounder Ben Hollioake had died aged 24, his car having crashed into a brick wall in Perth.

Hussain flew to Hollioake’s funeral in Australia, but not before walking back out to bat and finishing the Test at the Basin Reserve.

“We were all absolutely gutted by it and some of the Surrey boys, Graham Thorpe and Mark Butcher in particular, almost couldn’t carry on,” Hussain recalled to Sky Sports.

No England Test cricketer had died so young.

The fact Phillip Hughes was felled at the crease in front of some of his Test teammates will make it even more difficult for Australia to play at the Gabba next week.

But it is the grief of losing a close friend that is enveloping a shocked Test squad, as it did in Wellington.

“All day we’ve been thinking about him,” a distraught Hussain said after the day’s play in 2002.

“I’ve never known a quieter dressing room. They’re just sitting there. It’s difficult, there’s not a lot to talk about, what do you talk about.

“It won’t be easy for a while, he was very close to this team.”

Hussain told Sky it would be a “very, very difficult … and individual” decision as to whether Australian players feel up to taking the field at the Gabba on Thursday.

“To ask guys like Haddin, Lyon and Watson – who were playing in the game and holding their dying friend on the SCG turf – to strap on their pads might be asking too much,” he said.

“But they may want to play as a tribute to Phillip Hughes and make it a Test match for him.

“I don’t think anyone could complain with whatever decision those cricketers make.”