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IT was never a matter of if Phillip Hughes would return to Australia's Test team, but when.

After being shunted between positions three, four and six during his most recent stint at the top, the suspicion was that he would have to bide his time until veteran opener Chris Rogers retired. Once that vacancy arose, however, he would be given an extended period to make it his own.

The expectation that Hughes would be the next partner for David Warner was based on his relentless run-scoring at Sheffield Shield level. While many remained sceptical he would replicate that form at the highest level for a sustained period, because of a lack of trust in his unorthodox  technique, even sceptics would not have begrudged him selection because of those sustained shield run-hauls.

"There is a difference between batting and how to make runs," explained Neil Buszard, the former head cricket coach at the Victorian Institute of Sport, in 2009 after Hughes' international debut.

Buszard had the advantage of having seen Hughes almost a decade earlier, as captain of a New South Wales primary schools team that faced a Victorian team led by his son, Tim.

"We teach people how to bat in the nets and technically how to hit the ball, but there is another skill in itself: how you actually make runs, not just hit the ball to fielders with a lovely shot. We see that all the time," he said. "That skill - how to make runs, how to work the ball to gaps - is something that is very hard to teach in the nets."

His hunch that Hughes just knew how to make runs was emphatically vindicated, sooner than expected. 

Hughes was just shy of his 19th birthday when he broke into the formidable NSW team in November 2007. He made a half-century on debut against a hardened Tasmania bowling attack.

The diminutive left-hander finished that season with two significant honours: being part of a shield-winning team and becoming the youngest player to score a century in a shield final. His 116 in the second innings, compiled against rapid-paced Bushrangers Dirk Nannes, Peter Siddle and Shane Harwood, was the Blues' top score  in a match that featured Michael Clarke, Simon Katich and Brad Haddin.

The spectre of second-year blues was banished when Hughes plundered 198 in the second match of the following season. His form was noted not only by domestic cricket aficionados, but by  national selectors.

Hughes did not exude grace at the crease, instead catching the eye for his improbable power and ability to flay cuts through even the most slender gaps. In the 2008-09 summer, however, his timing could not have been sweeter. 

As Test great Matthew Hayden floundered in what became his final Test summer,  Hughes thrust himself to the front of the queue with scores of 93, 108, 114 and 23 for the Blues.

The pivotal match for determining who would be Australia's next Test opener for the imminent tour of South Africa came in late January, 2008.

The top two contenders walked out to bat together in Newcastle: Hughes, 20, and his NSW partner Phil Jaques, 29, who had averaged 47.47 in his eight Tests.

By the end of the match, the victor was clear. As Jaques made scores of nine and 12 against Tasmania, his novice partner, playing in  his 14th match, shone with 151 and 82 not out.

It was just three days later that chief selector Andrew Hilditch gushed over "one of the most exciting things I have had the pleasure of doing since being a selector": choosing Hughes to play for Australia.

The only thing that did not go right about Hughes' first tour was that fans in his home town of Macksville were denied a cost-free boozy night when the local publican's offer of free beer for the duration of his debut innings barely allowed enough time for a single drink.  He departed from the fourth ball of the match in Johannesburg.

Scoring 75 in the second innings  was an encouraging riposte from Hughes - but not a patch on what he produced in Durban in the next Test.

Hughes propelled the visitors to an insurmountable two-nil lead, and with it the annual ICC Test Championship.

The left-hander bettered all of the home team's bowlers, and battered Morne Morkel in particular, in making 115 and 160. He was only the 14th Australian to achieve that feat, and the youngest. Selectors' determination to expose Hughes to English conditions before the 2009 Ashes, through a pre-tour stint with Middlesex, appeared a masterstroke after he made a record-breaking start. Three of his first four innings were centuries, a record for Middlesex, as he began with a stint that reaped 574 runs at an average of 143.5. Hughes drew admiration from the Old Enemy. "He is a brilliant player, that's all there is to it. I like him," said Middlesex director of cricket, Angus Fraser. "He's laid-back, but there's a wink in his eye."

The first chink in Hughes' armour was glimpsed in a pre-Ashes tour match, when he was twice caught behind the wicket fending at deliveries from beanpole paceman Steve Harmison.

Another hostile fast bowler, Andrew Flintoff, replicated the tactic in the Tests, having him caught behind the wicket twice in the first two Tests.

The pattern in Hughes' dismissals, combined with Australia's inability to win the first Test and hefty loss in the second, prompted selectors to axe the 20-year-old who, at that stage, had a batting average of 52.44 from five Tests. In the process Hughes became the first of many sportsmen to be reproached for his use of Twitter after disclosing  that he had been dropped for Shane Watson, well before the Australian hierarchy had intended.

Hughes made two Test cameos in 2009-10, both times standing in batsman for an injured teammate. After that second cameo, in New Zealand when he deputised for Watson, NSW proudly revealed that his record after 40 matches - 3882 runs at an average of 59.72 - ranked among Australians only behind Sir Donald Bradman's 4922 at 80.68.

Having lost his first-choice status for the third Test of the 2009 Ashes, he had to wait until the third Ashes Test of 2010-11 to regain it.

Hughes deserved his call-up  to replace injured opener Simon Katich, but the timing was not ideal. His shield record in that season was meagre 118 runs at an average of 16.86. His record in attempting to keep that Test opening slot, which he controversially retained despite Katich's return to fitness, was only marginally better.

Hughes bought some time by top scoring with 126 in the last Test in Sri Lanka in mid 2010, but still his second coming at Test level was not as fluent as his first.

That second stint came to an end later that year after a series against New Zealand in which he became the subject of derision, because in all four innings he was caught in the slips cordon by New Zealand's Martin Guptill off the bowling of wily seamer Chris Martin.

For all the black humour that streak created - Kerry O'Keeffe joked that if Hughes was to nick himself shaving, Guptill would instantly appear with a Band-Aid - it was much more serious for Hughes. At that stage, 21 of his 31 Test dismissals were caught between the wicketkeeper and gully. He was distraught, and withdrew from the Big Bash League to rebuild his technique and his confidence.

His second Test stint was twice as successful as the first only in terms of the number of matches within it: 10, compared to five from his debut. He had averaged 24.05, with only that one century and one half-century beyond that.

Hughes, still a shy country boy despite his cricketing feats, finished 2011-12 with a shield average of 28.56. In every other season, including this one, his average has been above 40.

In a bid to remedy this career crisis, Hughes decide to leave NSW and start afresh, in South Australia.

"That was a huge one, moving away from family and close mates. But I knew I had to do it. It was all about my gut feel," he said later that year.

Around the time of the first Test of the summer, he made 158 in a shield game at the MCG in an innings his new coach at SA, Darren Berry,  felt was just as significant for the shots he did not play (nibbling outside off-stump) than the ones he did (scoring off his legs, which he rarely did early in his career).

Within a week Ricky Ponting had announced his Test retirement. Hughes was given the first chance to take his place at No.3.

Hughes twice came close to scoring a maiden home Test century in that three-match series against Sri Lanka in 2012-13 but fell in the mid-80s on each occasion.

It continued an unusual record in which, despite having a superb shield average of 52.12, he underperformed at home on the international stage, averaging 24 from nine matches. He scored two one-day centuries in Australia last year, but Tests were his primary measure of success.

As the type of batsman who relished fast bowling much more than spin it was little surprise he struggled in Australia's disastrous 2013 tour of India. He at least demonstrated his tenacity with 69 and 45 in the second half of the series.

As Australia moved on to England, with a new coach, the lasting memory of the 2013 Ashes series opener was teen finger-spinner Ashton Agar falling just two runs short of an astonishing century on debut. Unfairly forgotten was that Hughes, demoted to six, was unbeaten on 81.

Hughes was then on the wrong end of DRS decisions in all three of his  innings - at least two were borderline calls - making a combined total of just two runs from them.

 Hughes was dropped again, this time to make way for David Warner, who was grabbed from the selection doghouse in Australia's fading desperation to regain the Ashes.

With that axing came the end of stint number three: 463 runs at 28.94 from nine Tests, with four half-centuries. 

The best of Hughes was, thankfully, back on display last summer.

In the second match of the season he made 204, his highest shield score, at home to Western Australi,a and within a month made centuries in Melbourne and Sydney, too. 

Hughes didn't break into the Test team against England but did his utmost to be next in line. 

He had not played red-ball cricket for a month when the squad for the Tests in South Africa was chosen, but given none of his shield rivals had either - it was during the BBL hiatus - he had no cause to feel disadvantaged. He nevertheless missed the squad, with Shaun Marsh and the uncapped Alex Doolan preferred. He was later was given a reprieve when Marsh injured his calf after the squad was named.

The one vacancy in the Australian batting order, from the omission of George Bailey after their home Ashes demolition of England, became two when Shane Watson injured his calf. While Marsh recovered and rejoined the squad in South Africa, Hughes bolstered his case by top-scoring with 83 in the only practice match.

As two had to go into three, Hughes was, again, the one to miss out. He was similarly overlooked in the United Arab Emirates when selectors, having dropped Doolan, replaced him with a player who had only once batted at three in the shield: all-rounder Glenn Maxwell.

Since Hughes went to South Africa in early 2009 he missed selection for only two Test tours: the series against Pakistan in England in 2010, and 2011-12 in the West Indies. Being a back-up member of the Australian squad for much of that period put him at the front of the queue to play in case of late mishaps but it also robbed him of opportunities to press his claims in the shield.

When chief selector Rod Marsh was asked - only hours before Hughes suffered the horrific blow to his head while batting - about selection for the Gabba Test, he lamented that the left-hander had "probably just missed his window of opportunity". That window was the two matches he had played since arriving home from the UAE, in which he scored 20, 69, 7 and 11.

Even with those low scores, and the unbeaten 63 against NSW, Hughes' shield record since being dropped in the 2013 Ashes was 767 runs at an average of 51.13, with three centuries and three half-centuries.

Marsh cushioned his commentary on Hughes by reaffirming the quality of the Macksville export, and selectors' intention to recognise that.

"He's a very, very good young player that's got 26 . . . first-class hundreds. He's probably as unlucky as anyone has been over the last little bit but his time will come, and he'll be better for it, in my opinion," he said.

Reaching 63 against NSW was the 40th time passed 50 in the shield - a mighty effort given it was only his 95th innings. And all before his 26th birthday.

Tuesday's innings came against an attack consisting entirely of Australian representatives. By lunch, he had only reached 32 as Mitch Starc and Sean Abbott deservedly put friendship aside to test the supposed weakness since his first Ashes tour: short-pitched bowling. Hughes had to repeatedly duck and weave, especially against Starc, and had not produced many memorable shots. He was clinging on like a barnacle to a hull, the approach that earned Chris Rogers an unlikely Test recall just before his 36th birthday.

With a Test spot up for grabs and a selector - Mark Waugh - in attendance, Hughes was making the most of his latest audition. In the 20 overs after lunch he had almost doubled his score. His first error for the day against the short ball, one from Abbott, had consequences no one could have contemplated.

Hughes won't be remembered as a batting technician. Nevertheless, in an age where many batsmen are adept at scoring attractive 30s and 40s, his record of substance over style is deserving of recognition beyond those who saw him.

Cricket is but a minor issue when compared to the loss felt by Phillip Hughes' family, teammates and friends. But the sport is still the poorer for Hughes missing the chance to prove he belonged at the top level. He was young enough to have enjoyed an unbroken,  decade-long stint from the fourth phase of his Test career that inevitably beckoned for him.

- THE AGE