Cricket bat tribute to Phillip Hughes is a simple image of a global grief

This viral social media phenomenon, tagged #putoutyourbats, perhaps more than anything else demonstrates the remarkable extent of the public reaction to what has been a unique tragedy for the modern game.

Evoking as it does memories of similar global responses to the deaths of the likes of Princess Diana, the tribute also illustrates the remarkable degree to which cricketers are embraced not only by rusted-on sports fans but by the broader community.

It is of course a sport that is embedded deeply in Australian life and our long, hot summers. It is also, even in its shortest forms, still a long game.

Cricketers are on the field for hours and days at a time. They are engaged in an activity that requires a remarkable degree of travel at its higher levels and have opportunities for extended close contact with administrators, opposition team members, support staff and the media.

This creates an environment in which personal idiosyncrasies cannot be concealed and in which strong bonds of friendship are forged.

Cricket has always been a team sport played by individuals.

This means a player's temperament - his ability to handle pressure and interact with others - is almost as important as his skill with the bat and ball.

Hughes, the young bloke from Macksville who would have turned 26 on Sunday, wasn't popular only because of his talent and status.

He is remembered as a genuinely warm and likeable man; a player who didn't have a big head or tickets on himself and was as interested in those around him as they were in him.

These are not always characteristics we associate with celebrities and, in Hughes' case, appear to have been the legacy of a naturally open and engaging nature and a no-nonsense country upbringing on a banana farm.

While his career did not always go to plan and he had been in and out of the national team, Hughes was never one to dwell on misfortune or wish anything but the best for a player more in favour than himself. He was also a hard worker, whose love of the sport and drive was obvious.

The cricket-watching public seemed to respond to that. There was always a genuine hope among cricket fans that he would go on to do well, and a belief that time was on his side. It wasn't.

While Friday's social-media-led tribute was spontaneous and inspirational it is simply the first part of what will likely be an extended period of commemoration, grief and mourning.

Cricket is a weekend game and the talk at venues across the country today, whether they be dusty village sports grounds or well-irrigated playing fields in major cities and regional towns, will centre on the tragically premature loss of a young man who had shown such promise.

Children at grounds from Canberra to Cairns will, if the day goes their way, retire at 63 not out in honour of Hughes's score when he was struck. The same tribute will undoubtedly happen at senior level too. Black armbands will be worn just about everywhere the game is played.

At a time when they're ready, Australia's Test team - including some of his closest friends - will return to the field and undoubtedly there will be more moving tributes then.

Hughes' death has touched every player, supporter, club member and volunteer in Australia. And it has touched the sport in every country it is played.

How could it be otherwise? In his short life the talented left-hander's skill with the bat allowed him to live out what has, for generations, been almost every Australian schoolboy's dream.

For this generation of children those dreams will survive their grief and shock and, possibly, their fear. They will return to the crease with the same sense of pleasure and ambition Hughes showed when he as a kid.

For now though, their bats may be resting against their front doors.