The country boy who moved a nation

Were the authors of Phillip Hughes: The Official Biography to have searched for a more evocative title, they might easily have settled on calling it Unfinished Sympathy. It feels like an uncompleted work, because that is exactly what Hughes' life turned out to be.

As leading Australian cricket writers - and accomplished authors - Malcolm Knox and Peter Lalor relate in their introduction: "The Phillip Hughes story is without a happy ending. In the way stories are told, it does not have a proper conclusion at all... When Australia grieved for Phillip, a part of its sorrow was for the loss of possibility, as if the country had been absorbed in the first pages of a book, only to find that the rest had been ripped out."

Knox and Lalor were commissioned to write the Hughes story with the cooperation of his family, and by extension that of the great and good of Australian cricket. That kind of imprimatur has benefits but also drawbacks. The access, naturally, is extensive, but there are also the restrictions of taste and personal preference. Also of note was the timing of the book's production - in the days and months leading into and during this year's Ashes series; as the one-year anniversary of Hughes' death has shown, emotions and memories are still something for many to wrestle with.

As such, this is not the book to dissect the whys and wherefores of Hughes' death. Nor is it a totally unvarnished portrait of a young man who had his share of rough edges. Instead it is a warm retelling of his early life in Macksville, a tribute to his extraordinary will power to succeed as a batsman, and a strong insight into matters of selection, from the perspective of a cricketer who was fighting to return to the Test team for the sixth time at the moment his life was so shockingly ended.

A theme running through the early pages is somewhat surprisingly one of catharsis, as the Hughes family open up about his early life in a most intimate way. Lalor took responsibility for covering the early part of Hughes' life, and spent more than a week in northern New South Wales with dad Greg, mum Virginia, brother Jason and sister Megan. What he found were countless "boy from the bush" tales that weave into something approaching The Natural for their sun-drenched illustrations of Hughes' talent.

These stories are interwoven with a rich selection of family photos of mementos like a Tonka truck, or early school assignments (his handwriting was neat). Such images provide an insight into the world Hughes grew up in, all the while offering tremendous poignance: a short essay entitled "I predict when I am 30 my family will be as follows" will cause a lump in plenty of throats.

With each page, cricket begins to emerge as it took a more prominent place in the Hughes household. His brother Jason recalls: "I started taping the ball up and I used to nick him off all the time." It was a secret Jason kept to himself, as school, club and representative runs mounted up, drawing talent scouts to invite Hughes along to countless trials. These trips and many others for playing the game played havoc with Hughes' schooling: one seven-week period in year nine saw him at school all of seven days.

Knox takes up the tale when it moves into Sydney, and the formative influence of Neil D'Costa comes into the picture. The coach is described as "ebullient and fast-talking", and his influence on Hughes can be summed up in one of his sentences: "I knew what he could do, but the question was, could he get comfortable in Sydney, could he stay out of trouble?" Others remember Hughes as a young player thinking constantly of the now and the future rather than history or statistics. It is noted that he found the adjustment from junior ranks to Sydney club cricket among the hardest of his career.

What follows in first-class cricket is a pattern of heavy scoring and even harder work. His seismic century in the 2008 Sheffield Shield final is recalled in detail, as is a match on a Bellerive greentop where he made 201 in two innings out of a combined NSW total of 345. All of this demonstrated the ability the national selectors recognised in choosing him for South Africa in 2009, where Hughes both stunned and thrilled team-mates and spectators.

The basic plot is well known, from the heights of South Africa and an early- season stint with Middlesex to the depths of England and the numerous battles to come back into the national team that followed that 2009 Ashes tour. Most valuable and enlightening are untold stories, such as of the time Peter Siddle went after Dale Steyn with short balls after overhearing South Africa's spearhead indicating they would have liked to hit Hughes on the body a few times before he was out in his first Test innings. "You want to hit my mate?" Siddle screamed. "I'll hit you!"

Over the next six years, Hughes grew wiser and a little more worldly. He moved to South Australia, which in its smaller community appeared to suit him better than Sydney's bright lights. Once more a pattern emerges, of heavy first-class scoring, moments of promise in the Test arena, then another dose of hard medicine when he is dropped.

By the time of the 2013 Ashes series, Hughes is showing increasing signs of maturity and self-knowledge. His partnership with Ashton Agar at Trent Bridge stands as the exemplar of what Hughes could have become. Agar's depiction of how Hughes guided him through that innings is a beautiful and valuable reminder of how a partnership is formed, even if this one was a most outlandish example of them.

Equally vivid is the feeling of dismay among many members of the team when Hughes is dropped after one more Test match. Having been through it all before, Hughes knew it was coming, telling Usman Khawaja, "You watch, they'll drop me", but his outward even temper hid mounting frustration, as Ed Cowan articulated: "They were talking about how there was no batting coming through, but we had a guy who could be the best batsman in the world and they kept doing him over." Cowan offered to front coach Darren Lehmann about the apparent hypocrisy, but Hughes talked him out of it.

In all, Lalor and Knox spoke to some 85 people about Hughes, with only Brad Haddin and Steven Smith among those who declined, given the book's tight time frame and crossover with this year's Ashes. What is left is a portrait of Hughes that offers numerous worthwhile lessons. Perhaps, in time, there may be the chance for another account that looks further into elements only hinted at here. But in the circumstances, and with the aforementioned blessings and curses of the official seal, this is a fine production. An unfinished one, as it must be.

Phillip Hughes: The Official Biography
By Malcolm Knox and Peter Lalor
Pan Macmillan Australia
336 pages, A$45