Phillip Hughes

Phillip Hughes

Phillip Joel Hughes (born 30 November 1988) is an Australian test and One-Day International (ODI) cricketer who currently plays domestic cricket for South Australia and Worcestershire. He is a left-handed opening batsman who made his Test debut at the age of 20, after just two seasons with New South Wales.

Hughes has been in and out of the test team on several occasions since his test debut in 2009. During the 2009 Ashes series in England, he was dropped from the team due to his perceived weakness against the short ball, and replaced by Shane Watson. Hughes has made several brief returns to the Australia test team since then, first against Pakistan in January 2010, and then against New Zealand in March 2010 where he made 86 not out in a second innings run chase.

In the 2010/11 Ashes series, Hughes was initially omitted from a 17-man test squad but was selected in the third test in Perth following an injury to Simon Katich. Hughes performed relatively poorly in the series but was retained for Australia's tour of Sri Lanka in August/September 2011 following some good end of season form in 2010/11 for New South Wales. Hughes scored 126 in the third and final test of the series against Sri Lanka and scored 88 in the subsequent Australia tour of South Africa. However, in the New Zealand Tour of Australia in 2011-12, Hughes was caught Guptill, bowled Martin four successive times and he was dropped in favour of Ed Cowan.

After his axing, Hughes opted to skip the Big Bash League to work on his technique. Hughes signed a contract with Worcestershire and enjoyed a fruitful season primarily at No.3 in the order averaging 35 in first class cricket, 100 in T20 cricket, and 83 in ODD cricket. Hughes backed up his strong season for Worcestershire with fine form for South Australia after moving states from New South Wales to South Australia. John Inverarity, then chairman of the national selection panel of cricket Australia, noted that Hughes was considered an important part of Australia's future. As of January 2012, he was the leading Sheffield Shield run scorer and the second leading run-scorer in the Ryobi cup. Hughes noted that he felt it was the gut feel decision to leave his family and friends and move interstate to further his cricketing career.

Hughes was rewarded with fine domestic form in 2012, first by being selected in the Australia test squad for the Sri Lanka tour of Australia in 2012-13, then by being selected in the Australia ODI squad for the first two ODI's in the same tour. Hughes was upgraded to a CA contract for 2012/13 on 3 January after appearing in 3 tests in 2012 and receiving 15 upgrade points, 5 for each test match appearance (12 upgrade points are required for an upgrade). Hughes is set to receive a $1 million CA contract in the 2013/14 season and the national selectors consider him to be one of the most important aspects of Australia's future.

On 11 January 2013, Hughes became the first Australian batsman in the history of ODI cricket to score a century on debut, a feat which he achieved in Melbourne against Sri Lanka. Hughes is also the youngest cricketer ever to score back-to-back centuries in a test match, a feat which he achieved in Durban, 2009 against South Africa.