Kim Hughes had an incident and struggle filled career. A man with strong, independent opinions, Hughes refused to be a part of the World Series Cricket parade. He chose to stick with the establishment. His Test career was a stop-start one and he was yet to be a regular member of the squad when the captaincy was thrust on him, in only his 11th Test. His tenure as a captain was a difficult one, to put it mildly. He never enjoyed the support of the likes of Ian Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. Australia had lost a number of their first choice cricketers to the Kerry Packer led WSC and Hughes was left with an unenviable task of marshalling an inexperienced side. To his credit though, Hughes took upon it as a challenge and did his best to help Australia. He could not
do much though. While his batting improved gradually, the wins never came for Australia. It did not help his cause that only 7 of his 28 Tests as captain, were played on home soil. In the 1981 Ashes, now remembered as Botham's Ashes, Hughes faced the ignominy of becoming the first skipper to lose a match after having enforced the follow on. Widespread criticism followed after Australia's loss to England. Hughes made himself a number of enemies too and the likes of Bob Simpson were open about their contempt for Hughes. He fought on though and ended up as the top scorer when England toured Australia for the next Ashes and helped them win the series. A lot of pride had been redeemed but it was not always going to be sweet for Hughes. He was the captain again in 1983-84 in the tour of West Indies. A severely depleted Australian team was humiliated by the mighty Windies. Hughes was forced to step down as captain at the end of the series. He was filled with emotion in the press conference when he read out the official statement and could not make it through the entire statement as tears flowed out. This act of Hughes was again ridiculed by the Australian public who seemed to think that crying out loud was an un-Australian thing to do. To this day though, it remains one of the saddest stories of cricket.

Hughes was further criticized when, after his retirement, he led a rebel tour to South Africa, who were then ostracized from the cricket community. He spent the rest of his days, playing domestic cricket in South Africa. His influence in Western Australian cricket remained though. He was the first person from WA to lead Australia in Tests and he later served as a selector for them for a short term.

By Ganesh Chandrasekaran