Phillip Hughes - First-class Career

First-class Career

After scoring runs prolifically for New South Wales youth teams and Western Suburbs in Grade Cricket, Hughes was handed a rookie contract by New South Wales for the 2007–08 season. After scores of 51 and 137 for the New South Wales Second XI against Victoria's Second XI, Hughes was rewarded with a call up by Blues selectors to make his first-class debut. He played his first senior game against Tasmania on 20 November 2007 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. At 18 years and 355 days, Hughes was the youngest New South Wales debutant since Michael Clarke in 1999. In a comfortable victory for New South Wales, Hughes opened the batting and got his career off to a solid start, scoring a fluent 51 and taking 2 catches.

Hughes had an outstanding debut season for New South Wales, playing 7 matches and scoring 559 runs at an average of 62.11 with 1 century and 6 fifties. The highlight of Hughes' excellent season came in New South Wales' Pura Cup final victory over Victoria. He scored 116 off 175 balls in the Blues' second innings to help put his team in a commanding position. At 19 years of age, this innings made him the youngest ever player to score a century in a Pura Cup final. Hughes was rewarded for his achievements by winning the New South Wales Rising Star Award and earning an upgrade to a full state contract for the 2008–09 season.

He was signed by Middlesex on a short-term contract, as cover for Murali Kartik for the beginning of the 2009 English cricket season. He was available for first six weeks of the season, and played in three County Championship matches, all eight of Middlesex's Friends Provident Trophy group matches and the first few matches in the Panthers' defence of the Twenty20 Cup. In most other years, a contract for the opening six weeks of the season would involve playing 4–6 Championship matches, some but not all FPT matches and no Twenty20, but the scheduling for 2009 has to accommodate ICC World Twenty20 and the eventually-cancelled Stanford Super Series. It has been noted that despite Hughes holding an Italian passport by virtue of his Italian mother, Middlesex resisted signing Hughes up as a Kolpak player and instead signed him as a foreign player. He enjoyed strong success in England, scoring 574 runs in his three first-class matches, including three hundreds, at an average of 143.50. Of his time at Middlesex, Hughes commented:

I thoroughly enjoyed it and the preparation has been great. The big thing that came out of it was that I played at three Test grounds I'm going to be playing on and got to experience them before this big series coming up. Lord's was my home ground there for Middlesex and I played at The Oval as well and Edgbaston. It couldn't have really worked out any better. The big thing was just going over there to experience the whole different culture really, the weather, the wickets and the bowlers as well."

Hughes hit back-to-back hundreds at the end of the 2010/11 season to earn the praise of Australian chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch. In his last two first class matches for NSW in the 2010/11 season he scored 54, 115, 138 and 93. Australia chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch stated "I was thrilled for Phil, I think he turned the corner the last game. I spent a bit of time with him before the last Shield game and he seemed to be in a really good place. Having had a tough season, to emerge like he has is a credit to him."