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There were moments of silence on Friday while state teams joined in putting their bats out

Andrew McGlashan31-Oct-2025

Tributes have been paid around the world for 17-year-old Melbourne cricketer Ben Austin, who died on Thursday after an accident batting in the nets.He was struck in the neck by a ball thrown by a sidearm while practicing at Ferntree Cricket Club. His life support was turned off on Thursday morning.Ahead of the T20I between Australia and India at the MCG, both teams stood with match officials and representatives from Austin’s cricket clubs for a moment’s silence, with a crowd approaching 75,000 at the time, while Austin’s image was shown on the big screen and his cap placed on a plinth on the outfield. Players from each team and the match officials also wore black armbands.Overnight at the women’s World Cup, both the Australia and India teams wore black armbands in their semi-final.In the Sheffield Shield matches that concluded on Friday, teams put their bats out in memory of Austin and wore black armbands while a minute’s silence was held before the resumption of the Victoria-Tasmania game at Junction Oval in Melbourne.Around the world, cricket boards and players offered their condolences.On Thursday, Austin’s father Jace said that cricket was a huge part of his life. “This tragedy has taken Ben from us, but we find some comfort that he was doing something he did for so many summers – going down to the nets with mates to play cricket,” he said in a statement. “He loved cricket and it was one of the joys of his life.”Cricket Australia and Cricket Victoria are providing support.”It makes you so proud to realise how connected the cricket community is and how much we look after each other … but it’s a shame that it’s these moments that remind you of that very fact,” Cricket Victoria CEO Nick Cummins told reporters on Friday.”Ben was the classic Aussie boy or girl who loved footy in the winter and cricket in the summer. He is how we would like all of our children to turn out, and was living the dream.”Victoria and Tasmania players put their bats out in memory of Ben Austin•Getty Images

The accident has raised questions about the use of sidearms, or wangers, at club and junior level and also whether greater protection should be mandated. Austin was wearing a helmet but it did not include a stem guard, which are now compulsory in Cricket Australia-sanctioned matches but currently only “strongly recommended” at community level.”I think the temptation in moments like this is to move to solution mode,” Cummins said on Thursday. “At the moment, our focus is around providing support and counselling for those people who experienced the trauma. There will be an appropriate time to review that and answer those questions.”Friend and team-mate Liam Vertigan said Ferntree Gully Cricket Club was in a state of shock over the death of such an energetic young man.”He lived and breathed his cricket,” Mr Vertigan told AAP. “He was just well loved by us all, very, very polite, always with a smile on his face.”Within hours of the tragedy, dozens of flower bouquets, sweet treats and a handful of cricket bats left by grieving friends had turned into a memorial for the teen.The accident came more than a decade after the death of Phillip Hughes, who was struck in the neck with a ball while batting in a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG. Hughes’ family were among those sending condolences, expressing hope that Austin’s family would be comforted by cherished memories of the teenager.As of Friday afternoon, a GoFundMe for Austin’s family had raised over AUD$120,000.

Ten T20I defeats in a row couldn’t sway resilient team from sticking to their guns in emphatic win

Shashank Kishore04-Oct-2024Sophie Devine had to scream her lungs out to get Maddy Green’s attention at long-off. She was unhappy with Green’s positioning and implored her to move a few yards to her right. The move was partly instinctive as much it was down to an understanding of Smriti Mandhana’s strengths, having played with her in the Women’s Premier League.Four balls into Eden Carson’s second over, the ploy was rewarded when Mandhana tempted fate and holed out to long-off. And just like that, Mandhana’s plans of playing a shot she scores a lot of runs off, especially early on against spin, were nipped in the bud.Devine revealed the plan for Mandhana was one among many that New Zealand put together for this World Cup opener, and while the results had been slow to come to fruition over the course of the previous year, what had remained was their steadfast belief in their methods.”Look, to be honest, we’ve been planning for this game for about, I don’t know, probably close to a year,” Devine said. “We’ve been really focused on this one game for a long time now, and the level of detail that we’ve gone into, in terms of match-ups, field settings, obviously it helps having played a little bit in the WPL.”It’s all well and good to have plans. If the bowlers can’t execute it, it doesn’t mean anything. But I thought the bowlers were outstanding. We were really clear around what plans we wanted to use and how we wanted to use them, and for them to execute and to pick up wickets regularly is something that I was really proud of. It’s a pretty cool feeling to have plans executed, and to be rewarded for it.”One of those plans that Devine touched upon, it seemed, was bowling a heavy ball. On a Dubai surface where the dew didn’t come on as anticipated, the ball was gripping more than a hint. And Lea Tahuhu showed the value of hitting hard lengths. The wickets of Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh and Deepti Sharma were reward for that unwavering discipline.Tahuhu’s natural swing, courtesy of her slingy action, tends to take the ball away. While she isn’t the tallest bowler in the game, she has worked previously with Jacob Oram, the former New Zealand allrounder turned bowling coach, on a slower bouncer to complement her hard lengths.Friday’s plan was confirmation of the extent to which the players have bought into the team’s methods, without being swayed by the uncertainty that a series of insipid results, including 10 successive T20I losses, can bring.”I think a word that got used today when we were presenting our jerseys was ‘resilient’ and, when I think of resilient people, I think of Leah,” Devine said. “She’s obviously been in and out of the side, she’s battled through injuries, she’s obviously got a young family now, and [she showed] her ability to just keep bouncing back and then to perform in pressure situations like she did today.Related

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“As a captain it’s a real privilege to be able to throw her the ball and know that she’s going to fight tooth and nail to do whatever she can for this team. And people like that are so important in a team environment, because that mongrel spirit is infectious and I thought she’s been great today. Long may it continue.”The brightest example of New Zealand’s spirit is Georgia Plimmer who was backed to open despite a horror run of form all through the summer. She made 26 runs in four innings during a winless England tour and had just one not-so-fluent half-century in the final T20I of an otherwise forgettable Australia tour.A T20I strike-rate that had been just a nudge above 84 revealed more than an inkling of struggle in the Powerplay. It may have been prudent for Devine to move up herself, but the New Zealand captain laid out what she termed a succession plan, for when she and Suzie Bates eventually decide to move on.One of those plans was to back Plimmer to find her feet in the pressure of international cricket. And on Friday, she launched a powerplay salvo that rattled India. In the context of her career and the match, Plimmer’s 23-ball 34 up top was worth so much more, even though there were other batters, such as Devine herself, whose unbeaten 36-ball 57 looks the more significant on the scorecard.”The cricket gods decided to be with us today and sometimes that’s all it is, isn’t it?,” Devine asked. “Sometimes you get a lucky bounce, sometimes you get, you know … a catch goes in the gap. I don’t think it’s through lack of effort, it’s not through lack of trying, it’s not through lack of preparation, I think it’s just sometimes the way cricket is.”So, I’m just really proud of this group to keep sticking at it, to keep believing in themselves. Trust me, we’ve been copping stuff from all over the place about the batting order, and I hope today shows exactly why we’ve been sticking with it for the last 12-18 months, because we believe in this batting order.”We believe in the openers, we believe in Melie [Amelia Kerr], and we believe in myself and the rest of the group. So hopefully that’s brought us a little bit of breathing space, but we know that it’s on us now to make sure that we back it up.”In a way, New Zealand played like a team that wasn’t burdened by the same expectations as India. Neither are they bound by history. Devine admits theirs is a transition that has loomed for longer than expected, which they’re trying to address in the best possible way.All told, New Zealand played like a team that would’ve embraced delight and dejection in equal measure, provided they didn’t deviate from plans that had been in the making for a while. And when the spotlight was on them on a grand stage against a more fancied opponent, they conjured magic to sting their opponents like few defeats in recent memory.