There is no doubt that cricket is not the the game that it used to be. Some of us who both followed and played cricket stopped, because it followed the path of so many other so called sports. With the injection of big money, cricket became little more than a business of street fighting on the field - egged on or egging on the contagion of a boorish crowd. They find it entertaining - others find it pathetic.

If you can't bowl them out, catch them out or run them out - but, instead, have to resort to playing dirty and knock them out - then you are not, in reality, playing cricket.

Sledging or intentionally bowling at above stump height is playing dirty - and the game would be better off it such behaviour was red-carded. The inquest into Phil Hughes death will not stop deaths or serious injuries - unless and until players and spectators accept that what they are now playing is the equivalent of gladiatorial thuggery.

For what it's worth, he could have be kept alive on a ventilator and inside a hyperbaric chamber where his ventilated system could have been flooded with oxygen? And with nothing to lose if tried!?

And may have worked in just hours? If his heart had been effectively stilled by a concussive blow to the venus nerve where it exits the side of the neck? And worth trying, given oxygen is implicated in all healing!

Even if unsuccessful? Given family and friends adequate time to say goodbye? Or not having to? If the oxygen had done the job of healing the affected nerve?

The blow that felled him was innocuous, military medium and he took it on the side of his neck! He missed it because he was through the hook a little too quick? This is my belief!

He seemed a likable bloke, who had many friends and few if any enemies! Now if only folks like Putin or Assad played that real man's game!? We could get all the differences in our world, ironed out on the field!?
Alan B.

"For what it's worth, he could have be kept alive..."? I believe not.

From what I understand he had a ruptured artery in the neck region and went quickly.

A ruptured artery would have come with a massive hematoma! And given the available vison? No such massive hematoma was evident?

Besides, the carotid arteries are further forward and another protected inside the spinal column. No he may have died of a loss of oxygenated blood to his brain as a consequence of a concussive blow to the nerve that sends signals to the heart, to regulate the heartbeat! Without which the heart can and does stop. Which then stops blood flow everywhere!

Nerve damage doesn't have to be permenant and in the early stages of paraplegia i.e., can be moderated or assisted by oxygen therapy. And a brain bleed may be assisted by ice. A british serviceman had half his brain shot away in the falklands, but survived because of accompanying hypothermia!

Philip took a blow to the side of the neck, well back of the carotid artery which would have meant uninterrupted blood flow, if the heart kept beating!

CPR performed on the field indicated it wasn't and even with a ruptured artery, it can take hours of internal bleeding to exsanguinate!

Except say, with a femoral artery, except he wasn't hit with a low blow but one behind the earlobe! I saw the whole thing!

The carotid artery is well in front of your ear and below the jawline. You can damage an important artery, with a twist that forces the head to turn well beyond normal range.

Phil could have survived if he'd ducked into the ball and allowed the helmet to wear it instead of turning his head and exposing his neck to the ball. Even so, the amount of rotation required to do the claimed arterial damage, requires considerable manual force to accomplish that outcome!

When facing short pitched hostile bowling you either duck or hook. After you get your head out of line with the watched ball and need to be trained with buckets of wet tennis balls served short, when you are still a kid, to make it instinctive!

And if it's not instinctive, needs to be put away!
Alan B.

He apparently dies of a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage that wasn't controlled in time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subarachnoid_hemorrhage

Geez Alan B don't you believe in doing any research? Here's what a real doctor said about what happened to Hughes, “This was a freakish accident because it was an injury to the neck that caused a haemorrhage in the brain,” Dr 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.”

Another doctor, Doctor Tony Grabs of St Vincent’s Hospital, described the injury as “catastrophic”.

Giving uninformed opinion based on speculation in such a case is pretty poor form really.