By Anil John/Sports Editor

Sport, they say, is a great leveller, but when it comes to sheer coldness, death always wins hands down.

It sneaks in icily when least expected and occasionally visits sportsmen in their prime, blotting sport’s magnificence and leaving in its wake a painful legacy of unfulfilled promises and shattered careers.

Yesterday, one of Australia’s most promising cricketers breathed his last in hospital after being hit by a bouncer. The ball shattered a key artery, causing massive internal bleeding inside his head. Phillip Hughes left this world at 25.

Who would have thought this would have happened one of these days when batsmen are cocooned in all sorts of protective gear? The helmet has been in vogue for over four decades now, its design and metallic composition undergoing constant evolvement. But when the time to go comes, such comforts don’t matter.

Sport these days is a matter of fierce pride, prestige and nationalism, and no matter how good you are at your game, you never know when calamity might strike.

Eight years ago, at the Asian Games in Doha, we were witness to a chilling incident when ace South Korean rider Kim Hyung-Chil was crushed under his horse while jumping over an obstacle.

The thought of an accident was far from his mind when he called up his wife in Seoul a couple of days before the event. Instead, he told her he would make her and their two children proud by winning a gold medal this time after having managed only a silver at the previous Asian Games in Busan. 

But fate played spoilsport, like only it can, and the bereaved family had to make the long trip to Doha to claim Kim’s body and accompany it back home. It was probably the worst journey they must have ever made.

Some people, however, can sense something is going to go wrong, but carry on regardless because they simply don’t know when to give up.

Brazilian Formula One legend Ayrton Senna was one such sportsman. He once said: “One particular thing that Formula One can provide you, is that you know you’re always exposed to danger. Danger of getting hurt, danger of dying. This is part of your life, and you either face it in a professional, in a cool manner, or you just drop it, just leave it and don’t do it anymore really. And I happen to like too much what I do to just drop it, I can’t drop it.”

During the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, tragedy hit Formula One and shook its foundations. First, Senna saw his compatriot Rubens Barrichello knocked unconscious and swallow his tongue when he crashed his car during practice. Barrichello miraculously survived, but rookie Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger was not so lucky, dying instantly the very next day in another crash.

Senna inspected the scene of the accident and seriously considered quitting the event, and even the sport, but decided to go ahead after talking with the team management. Even at the start of the race proper on Sunday, many sensed something might go wrong, and it sure did when a start-line incident sent a wheel flying into the gallery injuring several people. Senna could have pulled out then, but didn’t and the rest is history – albeit a sad one. Arguably the greatest-ever Formula One driver,  he lost his life, not far from the spot where Ratzenberger had died.

Brazil mourned for several days and culpable homicide charges were filed against the Williams team management, but to this day no-one knows the exact details of his death. “There are no small accidents on this circuit,” he had said talking about the Imola track before the fatal race. “It’s going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I’ll risk saying that we’ll be lucky if something really serious doesn’t happen.”

Well, something did happen, and the world of sports was left poorer because of that.

Senna was not the first sportsman to die doing what he loved best, nor will Hughes be the last. Did the thought of a possible accident even cross Hughes’ mind, like it had occurred to Senna, when he took guard to face fast bowler Sean Abbot? We will never know.

But should there be drastic changes to the way cricket is played after what happened to Hughes? The answer is simple: No.

Sport has to pick itself up from its latest crisis of confidence and move on. The same applies to sportsmen who live on the edge so that millions of their fans can occasionally experience the thrill of their lives. There is a strange mercenarial selfishness to this logic, but then how else would the show go on?

Sportsmen, and indeed everyone else, need to pursue their dreams, no matter the risks. As the Latin saying goes: “Live your own life, for you will die your own death.”

Senna wouldn’t have disagreed.

 

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