The lasting emotional effects of Phillip Hughes' tragic accident were on raw display at Australia's MCG training session three days before the Boxing Day Test. A shaken Shane Watson sat on a drinks cooler with his head in his hands after he was struck on the helmet by a James Pattinson bouncer, prompting an eerie silence to fall on the nets and both men to leave in visible distress.
Barely an hour earlier, Chris Rogers stood on the MCG and described his fearful reaction after he was hit on the back of the head while fielding at short leg during the Brisbane Test.
Cricket Australia said Watson was not injured but both incidents illustrate that however therapeutic it has been to get back on the field for the Test series against India, the emotional fallout from Hughes' fatal injury is never far from the surface for his teammates.
Rogers said he was deeply affected at the Gabba, where he instinctively turned his back while fielding in close and wore a fierce blow on the back of the helmet.
"You get hit in the head and with everything that has happened recently, it's probably two inches from where Phil got hit," Rogers said. "A lot of things go through your mind. At 37, fielding at short leg, you're thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?' "
He was too upset at the time to talk to Dr Peter Brukner, who ran to his aid.
"It was interesting times. The team asks you to get in there so you do. And then when you take a knock like that it's a little bit confronting. I was a little bit upset at the time and didn't really want to speak to anyone, as you might have seen."
Rogers is understandably keen for debutant Joe Burns to take his turn at the short leg duties in Melbourne. "As you saw from my technique I'm probably not the bravest in there. But it's one of those necessary rules. You have to get in there but preferably I don't want to be in there if I don't have to."
Watson was one of four Test players who were on the field with Hughes when he was felled by a bouncer while batting for South Australia at the SCG.
At Tuesday's training session, Watson ducked into a fast bouncer that crashed into his helmet, and fell to his knees.
Pattinson, who is continuing his recovery from injury with the Test squad, raced in to check on Watson, and looked extremely upset as he walked out of the nets.
Ryan Harris, who was also batting in the nets, put his arm around Watson and walked out of the nets with him, before the allrounder sat slumped on an esky for several minutes before leaving the session with Brukner. The blow prompted a gasp from spectators assembled on the concourse above the nets.
"He's a bit shaken, he's ok," said vice-captain Brad Haddin afterwards. "He just got hit in the head, he's shaken as anybody would [be]."
Watson spoke openly before the Adelaide Test about needing to learn to hold his nerve and trust his technique all over again when facing short-pitched bowling.
"It's been a big challenge to put the memories I have got, which are very much in the front of my mind, being very recent, to try and just move it back in my mind and just trust what I do as a batsman," he said at the time.
"Everyone is in the same boat, not just the guys who were at the SCG but everyone around the world. It has sent shockwaves around the world. We just love playing the game and you don't expect to lose a little mate on the way through. But every day I've gone out there to bat I have got more comfortable with it, more comfortable just reacting to what I see, trusting my skill."
Fast bowlers have also had to wrestle with bowling bouncers again, and Mitchell Johnson was rattled after hitting Virat Kohli on the helmet during the Adelaide Test.
"It was just an emotional sort of feeling. It was the first time that I'd struck someone in the helmet and that was just a normal reaction by me. I was able to move on from that - not straight away," Johnson said.
"But as the Test series has gone on we've seen that aggression come back into the game and that's what works best for me, bowling aggressive and getting up their guys."
The reaction to the Watson and Rogers incidents shows why Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association are making sure players have ongoing support through the summer and beyond.
Peter Siddle believes it has helped for the team to be together for much of the past month, but players still have their moments.
"You go through stages where it's all good but then there's little moments, even the other night walking out on the SCG [for a Big Bash game] it was quite awkward, saying hi to blokes that you're pretty close to who were close to Hughesy as well like Maddo [Nic Maddinson] and Moises [Henriques], there's a lot more meaning in a few games," he explained.
"It's still so early that it doesn't feel real. A lot of us will be having a coffee and you think he's going to pop up. It has affected us all in different ways and it has been hard. Being back playing has helped, and being around the team environment has helped a lot. If we need to talk we can talk. We can joke around, tell stories, and that has helped us work through it together as close mates."
