Adelaide, Australia: Attempting to judge the effect that Phillip Hughes' death from a short-pitched delivery has had on cricket might be best illustrated by the disparate reactions of Australian teammates Mitchell Johnson and Shane Watson.
Not surprisingly, paceman Johnson says he'll bowl as aggressively as he always has in the first test against India beginning Tuesday at the Adelaide Oval.
Allrounder Watson, meanwhile, said he had to face some inner demons" when he returned to the nets following Hughes' death on Nov. 27, two days after being hit by a bouncer during a domestic match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
A planned video tribute to the 25-year-old Hughes before the start of Tuesday's match might also bring back some emotional — and painful — memories for players on both sides.
"It'll be tough at first on Tuesday morning," Johnson said Monday. "But we have to try to not let our emotions get in the way."
And that translates to playing the same aggressive style he's known for — often throwing down deliveries approaching 160 kilometers an hour (100 mph).,
"That's the way I have always played the game," Johnson says. "If that's bowling the short ball like we have been, then that's what we'll do. You have to assess the conditions, but we're not going to change a thing."
And if one of his deliveries hits an Indian player in the head?
"It might be different this time but I don't know how I'm going to feel," Johnson said.
Watson, who was on the field for New South Wales when Hughes, playing for South Australia, suffered his fatal injuries at the SCG, admitted to some trepidation when he faced his first deliveries in the nets.
"There's a lot of inner demons we've had to find our way through," Watson said. "It's been the most challenging, mentally, couple of days I've had to go through in my career. A few things flooded into my head as soon as I went out to bat. I thought I'd processed quite well over the previous week, but the memories I've got are very much in the front of my mind."
Time has healed some of Watson's concerns.
"Every day I've gone out there to bat I have got more comfortable with it, more comfortable just reacting to what I see ," Watson said. "Trusting my skill. That is really the simplest thing.
"Because I know at any stage if you get a ball and you get unlucky and it hits you in the wrong spot, it's always going to cause some serious damage, that's a part of the game."
India opener Shikhar Dhawan is not expecting anything but a fired-up Australian team led by Johnson, and Dhawan hopes to react to that approach in the same way.
"I feel that you need an aggressive opener in today's cricket which can turn things around," Dhawan said Sunday. "So that will be a very good thing for us. And I would love to play that role."
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting wants to see some immediate closure on Tuesday.
"I would love to see a bouncer bowled as the first ball in Adelaide," Ponting wrote in a newspaper column last weekend. "It would clear the air, announce that the game is on, and if that's done I think it might have a healing effect on everybody."
