Clutching flowers instead of bats and bags, dozens of heartbroken young cricketers arrived at a suburban ground to pay tribute to their teammate who never came home.<\/p>\n
The tragic scene unfolded after Ben Austin, 17, was struck by a ball while practising in the nets on Tuesday afternoon in Ferntree Gully in Melbourne’s east.<\/p>\n
His teammates rushed to help before paramedics transported him to hospital in a critical condition, where he died on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Within hours, dozens of flower bouquets, sweet treats and a handful of cricket bats left by grieving friends had turned into a memorial for the teen.<\/p>\n
A friend told AAP he understood Ben was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident and the bowler was using a “wanger” – a plastic instrument used to sling a ball.<\/p>\n
Devastated young people sat nearby discussing the tragedy, while a woman placed a helmet on her head and demonstrated where the ball had hit his neck.<\/p>\n
Friend and teammate Liam Vertigan said Ferntree Gully Cricket Club was in a state of shock over the death of such an energetic young man.<\/p>\n
“He lived and breathed his cricket,” Vertigan told AAP.<\/p>\n
“He was just well loved by us all, very, very polite, always with a smile on his face.”<\/p>\n
Ben’s father Jace revealed a teammate was bowling in the nets at the time, describing what happened as an accident that impacted two young men.<\/p>\n
Austin said he and his wife Tracey were devastated and would forever cherish their son.<\/p>\n
“Ben was an adored son, deeply loved brother to Cooper and Zach and a shining light in the lives of our family and friends,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Cricket Australia chief executive Mike Baird said the cricket world would come together to support the club and the Austin family.<\/p>\n
Ben was involved in multiple football and cricket clubs, while earlier this year he received an award recognising him as a player who demonstrated dedication and the right attitude.<\/p>\n
Australian cricketing great Merv Hughes said the young athlete’s death had been felt far beyond his community.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t matter what level of cricket you play, there’s always a chance that something like this happens,” he told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“Right across Australia and throughout the world, no doubt people will be thinking of him.”<\/p>\n
The use of helmets and neck guards is mandated across all Cricket Australia-sanctioned competitions but only “strongly recommended” at the community level.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to sound dismissive at all – it’s just tragic – but probably the records show there’s more chance of being hit by lightning than there is of dying through an incident at cricket,” Hughes said.<\/p>\n
“So let’s not be too hasty in judging what should and shouldn’t be done.”<\/p>\n
The accident came more than a decade after the death of Test cricketer Phillip Hughes, who was struck in the neck with a ball while batting in a Sheffield Shield game at the Sydney Cricket Ground.<\/p>\n
Phillip Hughes’ family were among those sending condolences to Ben’s loved ones, expressing hope that they would be comforted by cherished memories of the teenager.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including measles at a large Auckland school, Prince Andrew to lose the last of his titles, and stars back for the All Blacks. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clutching flowers instead of bats and bags, dozens of heartbroken young cricketers arrived at a suburban ground to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1081,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-109887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-accident","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}