If ever anything proved the existence of the “cricket family” it has been the fall-out from the death of Australian batsman Philip Hughes.

The tragic loss of the 25-year old has been felt and mourned not just in his home town and not just in Australia but in every back yard in every corner of the globe that the game has ever been played.

All sorts of tributes have been paid to Philip and there’s nothing that I could add that hasn’t been said a thousand times, however it is absolutely vital that the sport takes every precaution against a similar tragedy happening again.

Immediately after the player’s passing there were the anticipated calls for the rules of the game to be tightened dramatically, particularly over short-pitched bowling. The bottom line of course is that it would be far too difficult to simply remove “bouncers” from the sport.

That’s not to say that short-pitched bowling brings anything substantial to the game in my opinion- apart from testing an occasional batsman’s hooking technique or exploit a weakness in his defence it is used almost exclusively to intimidate.

In his piece on Sky News following the tragedy, Ian Botham alluded to the fact that when he was playing, batsmen had to cope with this tactic without the use of protective gear including helmets.

While there may be some truth in that however, we are now in a different era than Sir Ian’s. While the likes of Lillee, Thompson, Garner, Ambrose, Walsh and Marshall were quick and clever, they relied almost exclusively on pace.

Today’s fitness regimes and analysis techniques now mean that most pace bowlers, not just the top five or six, have perfected a short delivery that suits them and batsmen have had to continue to hone their skills to defend against them.

Top orders will remain fair game for the foreseeable future despite the death of Philip Hughes but in a sport that prides itself on the “spirit of the game”, it is high time that short-pitched bowling to tail-enders becomes a thing of the past.

Players bat at 9,10 and 11 for a reason, and usually the reason is that because they can’t bat to save their lives. In order to minimise the chances of this tragedy happening again we need to be sure no-one has to bat to save their life.

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The Danske Bank Senior Cup draw has thrown up a few intriguing ties for next year and that has coincided with the transfer rumour mill clicking into gear in the North West.

The truth is that very few sides have held their AGM’s yet so at the minute it is all pretty much speculation to this point. Coleraine are one of the sides who usually do their business early and although they have had their meeting already a source close to the club has said that they still have an iron or two in the fire and won’t be declaring their hand just yet.

It would appear however that both David Cooke and Gareth Burns are set to leave the club while Niall McDonnell has agreed a 2-year deal to stay. Professional Kyllin Vardhan returns in 2015 as well while Gordon Cooke and Jarred Barnes are also expected to remain at Sandel Lodge.

Scott Campbell takes over as skipper as Coleraine bid to regain the momentum they showed in 2013.

Much of what happens over this winter could well be dictated by events at Ardmore. The Bleachgreen club only managed to survive in the top flight on the back of superb seasons from Decker Curry and Gary Neely so they will be keen to tighten up in the coming months.

Adrian Murphy appears to have played his last game for the club and that triggers a chain of events likely to affect several teams. It is no secret that Ardmore have been courting former player Kevin Martin for a couple of seasons but now that they need a keeper the chase could well intensify.

Should the left hander agree to go back it will mean that Strabane could conceivably lose three of the four players who opened the batting for them this summer- Mark Gillespie having retired and Matt Bentley believed to be pursuing a course of further education closer to home.

That would also leave the Red Caps needing a keeper and at least one batsman themselves and mean that the merry-go-round could end up spinning for quite a while during the summer.

Bready have also held their AGM but as yet there has been no confirmation of a club skipper as this is usually selected at a players meeting. My contacts at Magheramason are suggesting that the presence of a second moon in the sky is more likely than Davy Scanlon not keeping the armband.

One player who won’t be turning out for the Ulster Cup holders however is Ernest Kemm- the South African accepting an offer to play in England in 2015 instead. The club have confirmed that they are “really close” to securing a replacement.

And despite all the suggestions of an exodus from Brigade it would appear that the ship has been steadied by the fact that Gareth McKeegan stays on as captain and he will have Andy Britton as his deputy.

It is clear that there has been quite a bit of turbulence on Limavady Road recently but the talk is that a strong committee is now being put together charged with getting them back on track.

Eglinton have yet to show their hand as well but the villagers have work to do with talk that Stephen Smyth has left the club. Ross Allen has gone to University and is set to miss the first 6 weeks of the campaign as well although hopes are high that Jonny Gardiner may return from his season-long sabbatical. The villagers could probably be doing with him if the other two are indeed missing.

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And finally for now the North West’s participation in the O’Neill’s Ulster Cup survived a vote of the Premiership clubs on Thursday night, but only just.

There are genuine fears within the Union that the amount of cricket to be played by senior clubs next summer is verging on too much, however clubs have opted to stay in the all-Northern Ireland competition.

Given that several grounds in the region will be closed to facilitate T20 World Cup Qualifying warm-up matches there looks set to be a substantial amount of double-header weekends in 2015.

Including Faughan Valley and Eric Cooke matches, senior clubs will have an absolute minimum of 20 fixtures even if they are knocked out of everything in the 1st round.

Successful clubs look set to have a hectic schedule and any rain throughout next summer will really start to cause problems so organisers will have everything crossed that we get a heat wave.

David Bradley has done a magnificent job to date in trying to schedule things to take account of the commitment required but even his magic wand might struggle to cope.

Had Cricket Ireland decided to push ahead with the “group stages” idea for the Irish Senior Cup it would have caused havoc with the entire programme but we’ll know more about what is needed in 12 months time.

One thing is for sure and that is there will be precious few free weekends between May and September.