By: Ian Ransom

Long called upon to rescue his team from treacherous situations, Australia captain Michael Clarke could do little to save his close friend Phillip Hughes, but bore his grief quietly in a vital supporting role for his “little brother’s” family.

Clarke was among the first to arrive at St Vincent’s hospital on Tuesday after Hughes was rushed there with a sickening head injury and read the family’s statement upon his death, three days before his 26th birthday.

In between, the 33-year-old was rarely away from the bedside of the player he mentored and ushered into New South Wales and later the national team.

TV footage showed Clarke walking briskly through the Sydney hospital’s doors early every morning and trudging out despondent much later in the day.

He returned at six in the morning on Thursday, perhaps hoping for some better news as Hughes, who never regained consciousness after being struck on the neck by a rising delivery in a domestic match, entered a third day in an induced coma.

Overcome by emotions

Unshaven, with rings under his eyes, Clarke’s head was bowed as he read the family statement, his voice clear if a little gravelly. He didn’t trip on a single word but after reading the final phrase — “we love you” — he exited quickly, overcome.

“Phillip has always been a little brother to Michael,” team doctor Peter Brukner said, his voice quivering with emotion. “Michael’s efforts over the last 48 hours to support the family — the family was obviously going through a difficult time — but I’m not sure they would have coped without Michael’s assistance.

“I was just enormously impressed at the work he did and the genuine care and love he gave to the Hughes family.”

Clarke spent time consoling the other party to the tragedy, all-rounder Sean Abbott, whose ball reared up and ruptured an artery, causing a rush of blood to Hughes’ brain that ultimately proved fatal.

“When he came to the hospital yesterday, Michael Clarke came down and spent a significant amount of time with (Abbott),” Brukner added. Clarke is nursing a hamstring injury, battling to be fit for a first test against India that may yet be called off.

Pundits this week called him selfish to try to prove his fitness with his Sydney club rather than play a tour match against India as selectors had wanted.

Others have written his body off completely, calling on him to step down as captain, or at least give up one-day cricket. The events this week underscored the trivial nature of the episode and the media attention it created. Grief-stricken Clarke’s leadership will be needed in coming days, even without a ball bowled in anger.

‘Incredibly rare’ injury, only the second by a cricket ball

Sydney: The “incredibly rare” condition that took Phillip Hughes’ life has only been reported 100 times in medical history and only the second time caused by a cricket ball, according to Australian team doctor Peter Brukner.

Brukner said the 25-year-old Hughes suffered an vertebral artery dissection after a ball struck his neck during a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney on Tuesday.

The blow caused Hughes’ vertebral artery, one of the main arteries leading to the brain, to compress. That caused the artery to split and Hughes experienced a “massive bleed into his brain”

“I think in this instance, this was a freakish accident because it was an injury to the neck that caused a haemorrhage in the brain,” Brukner was quoted as saying by ‘Sydney Morning Herald’.

The condition that killed Hughes had happened just once before due to a cricket ball, Brukner said. “The condition is incredibly rare. It’s called vertebral artery dissection leading to subarachnoid haemorrhage, if you look in the literature there are only about 100 cases ever reported,” he said, adding that the injury was often immediately fatal.

The head of trauma at St Vincent’s Hospital, doctor Tony Grabs, also described Hughes’ injury as “very rare, very freakish”, saying such a condition had never been treated at the hospital before.

Grabs said Hughes’ injury was “catastrophic” and after an immediate scan to assess his injuries, doctors decided they needed surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain. (PTI)