It was when I saw that "Ultima Hora" had run the story about Hughes that I realised how deeply and how widely news of his death was being experienced. Contemporary communications being as they are, news agencies being as they are, it was a story which might not have touched the Spanish media in years gone by, but because of the instantaneousness of communications, it did. But this was the death of a cricketer. Un jugador de críquet. They don't play cricket in Spain. What do the Spanish know of this sport?
Well, they do of course play cricket in Spain. The national side may in international terms be in the minor league but national team there is, though to suggest that the overwhelming majority of Spaniards would have a clue about the sport - quite how it is played or quite how silly mid-off might be translated into Spanish - would be well wide of the mark.
Sport has over time followed its own evolutionary pattern of separate development, but there are - as with all evolution - common origins, for example hitting something with something else, which became a bat, while the thing to be hit was moulded into a shape that would allow smooth movement - the ball, the pelota. The Spanish - the Basques originally - have "pelota", which migrated to Spanish-speaking countries, just as much of the British Empire formed a common bond on the cricket pitch. The sports are different but they are not different. They share a common root and they share a commonality in being a sport.
It was this commonality which came across most in the reports of Hughes's death. A sportsman had been killed doing what he did, playing sport. That cricket might be a sport of arcane rules and jargon to the uninitiated doesn't matter. It is still a sport and so part of a global community which comes together in the name of sport; hence the many DEPs that were contained in the comments to those reports.
The comments were, from the point of view of an English-speaking, cricket-loving observer, more interesting than the reports themselves. "Marca", the leading Spanish sports daily, had several pages of them on its website. The first one I came across said: "apart from being very boring, cricket is also dangerous and should be banned". Another opined that cricket was "a foolish and risky game". Others acknowledged the risks but no one else went so far as to suggest that cricket should be banned, though one added that "frankly, it seems stupid to me to play with balls that can kill". The counterpoint to this was one which said: "People die in cycling, motorcycling, skiing, and I could name others. Sport has a risk. If you don't want to assume it, then don't play it. But using a ball of foam rubber would be like limiting speeds on motorways to 20kph in order to avoid deaths".
It was the ball and its characteristics and the nature of protective gear which dominated the comments. There were those who, not having experienced cricket, were curious as to how the ball was made and others who expressed surprise that there was not greater protection. For those who didn't fully appreciate what had happened, someone went into some detail in explaining how "Hughes had turned on his vertical axis" (in cricketing parlance, he was playing the hook shot) and been struck where it was unusual to be struck. There was also surprise as to the sheer speed with which the ball can be bowled (or, in the absence of a Spanish verb "to bowl", can be thrown or slung). A Pakistani commenter came on to say that Shoaib Akhtar had bowled at 160kph (100 miles per hour).
Unrelated to the incident, someone else, not having any knowledge of cricket, had looked it up on Wikipedia. It was a sport with "a very interesting perspective". It was supposed that England would dominate it, but it turns out that England had never won the World Cup. He noted that India were the current champions and that the tournament had also been won by the West Indies ("a coalition of Caribbean micro-nations that seems to have been a good team").
Well, there's no need to rub it in about England's ongoing failure, but it was a comment which, I guess, highlighted how little would be known of cricket in Spain. Yet despite this, many people wished to comment, and overwhelmingly the feeling was one of sadness. The world of sport had come together. Phillip Hughes, DEP.
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