Michael Clarke opens up about the incredible call he answered from Phillip Hughes’ family just before the cricket star’s tragic death aged just 25: ‘It was the toughest time of my life’
- Hughes’ death left the sport in mourning in 2014
- Clarke regarded the batsman as his little brother
Former Australian Test captain Michael Clarke has revealed his anguish over the death of his great friend Phillip Hughes almost a decade ago after the star’s family asked him to be in the hospital room when his life support was turned off.
Hughes was just 25 years old when he was hit in the neck by a bouncer while playing for NSW in a Sheffield Shield match against South Australia on November 25, 2014.
He was operated on and put into a coma, but died two days later at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, with his family and Clarke at his bedside, leaving the cricket world in mourning.
‘It doesn’t let you go. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Clarke said of being there when Hughes’ father Greg turned off the life support machine.
‘Unfortunately I let too many people from my area pass by.
‘People say it’s getting easier. As you get older you may find ways to adapt, but I don’t think it gets easier. It’s still devastating.
“They just asked me to stay and I just tried to be the middleman between listening to what the doctors were saying and then explaining it to them in a certain way because they were so emotional.
‘They didn’t want me to leave, so I didn’t. I wouldn’t dare.’
Clarke (left) and Hughes (right) were exceptionally close before the batsman’s death devastated the cricket world in November 2014.
Clarke (pictured shortly after his partner’s death) was asked to stay with Hughes’ family when Phillip’s life support was turned off at St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney
Former Australian team doctor Peter Brukner – who also spent a lot of time in hospital at a vigil for Hughes – paid tribute to how Clarke conducted himself.
“He was incredibly helpful to both parents, Phillip’s brother and sister,” Brukner said News Corp.
‘He was with them for all the decisions they were told, including the doctors and interrogations.
‘They felt comfortable with him and he was immediately part of the family for that time.
‘It was tough for him. He had lost his little brother [Hughes]. Apparently he had a very special relationship with Phil.’
Clarke elaborates on those terrible days in the hospital in his autobiography My Story.
Nearly a decade after Hughes’ death, Clarke says coping with the tragedy has not become easier
“As I am taken to the room where they are waiting, Hughesy is wheeled past on a trolley,” Clarke wrote.
‘He looks normal. There’s still a sheen of sweat on his face, and his hand is still hot when I hold it.’
After initially focusing on how soon Hughes would return to the field and when he would wear Australia’s famous baggy green cap again, reality began to hit Clarke, who said his size had become unrecognizable to him.
“I think I was probably trying to tell myself that there’s a chance he’s going to be okay,” he revealed to 60 Minutes in 2016, before adding, “But I think I knew that wasn’t the case .’
Clarke was one of the pallbearers at Hughes’ funeral, where he gave a heartfelt speech.
“I don’t know about you, but I keep looking for him. “I know it’s crazy, but every moment I expect to take a call from him or see his face appear around the corner to call me into the next room for a story and a laugh,” he said.
‘Rest in peace, my little brother. I’ll meet you somewhere in the middle.’