The festive feel of the first day-night test match turned somber at 4:08 p.m. Friday, for a quiet tribute to Phillip Hughes during the first break in play.
The sight screens at each end of the Adelaide Oval flashed up the number 408, the Australian test cap number that Hughes wore in 26 test matches before he died on Nov. 27, 2014, never regaining consciousness after being felled two days earlier by a ball that hit him under the back of his helmet during a game at the at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Australian and New Zealand players, all wearing black armbands, had left the field for a 20-minute break Friday when a three-minute video montage was played on the big screens around the stadium where more than 40,000 people had gathered for the historic day-night test match.
Hughes was 25 when he was fatally injured, and his death rocked his teammates, the sport and its fans around the world.
Cricket Australia and Hughes’ family decided that the first anniversary should be commemorated quietly. The video culminated with the message: Remembering 408.
The schedule for Australia’s 2014-15 home series against India was redrafted in the wake of Hughes’ death, with the emotional opening test was played at the Adelaide Oval.
“There was a lot of emotions come this time last year and that’s one thing in the back of a lot of our minds,” David Warner, who played with Hughes for Australia and New South Wales, said ahead of the test this week. “We always know that our mate is looking down on us and we’ll always do our best for him when we walk out in the field. We’ve said from the first test last year when we played here ‘he’s with us every day.’”
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