Cricket's First Responders

GH on the untold story of the death of Philip Hughes

Nobody could name them today - which, in their telling, is just fine.  The best match officials, it’s said, efface themselves so completely that you’re hardly aware of their existence. By that measure they did their jobs.  

But that, a decade on, has rendered theirs the untold story of perhaps Australian cricket’s most dreadful moment.  When Philip Hughes sustained his mortal blow on 25 November 2014, umpires Ash Barrow and Michael Graham-Smith, with referee David Talalla, became the game’s first responders.  They’ll message one another tomorrow on the tenth anniversary.  Nothing weighty - just checking in.  But like everyone else, they’ve been changed by the shared experience.

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