Cricket great bashed, in coma
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Cricket coach David Hookes.
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SYDNEY, Australia -- Former Australian cricket great David Hookes is in critical condition after being apparently bashed during a brawl outside a hotel late Sunday night in the southern Australian city of Melbourne.
Hookes, 48, is currently coach of the Victorian state cricket squad and is a high-profile radio and television commentator on cricket and Australian rules football.
The former flamboyant batsman is said to be on a life-support system in a Melbourne hospital.
Clark Forbes, the program director at Melbourne radio station 3AW, where Hookes works as an on-air commentator, said that the situation was not good.
"David sustained serious head injuries and he's in a coma," he told local journalists. "I have to say he's not in a good way. "
"Technically he died, he was revived on the footpath outside the hotel concerned, which is a St Kilda late-night pub where the Victoria team had been celebrating yesterday's win over South Australia."
Police are questioning a 22-year-old man in connection with the assault.
Hookes was believed to have been celebrating a win by his Victorian cricket team at the hotel in the nightclub district of St Kilda when he became involved in the brawl.
Former Australian cricket captain Ian Chappell told Channel Nine television news it sounded like a classic case of being in the "wrong place at the wrong time."
Colleague Dean Jones told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio that he believed Hookes could pull through.
"He's been hit in the head by some of the fastest bowlers that have ever graced this planet and he got through it," Jones said.
