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LONDON — Two days after he was struck by a ball in what was called a freakish accident, an Australian cricketer, Phillip Hughes, died in a Sydney hospital on Thursday, drawing expressions of grief, shock and disbelief from fellow players and sporting figures around the world.
Mr. Hughes, 25, had represented Australia in dozens of international matches — in both one-day games and the longer contests called test matches — and was regarded as a player with a bright future after a sometimes-uneven record in the national team.
But his death stunned many fans of cricket’s thrilling duel between bowlers and batters in protective pads and helmets, renewing a long-running debate over safety. It is not unusual for the ball to strike players, but fatalities are rare. Cricket is a national sport in Australia, which prides itself on the skill and courage of its players.
“The head injury he suffered was catastrophic,” Dr. Tony Grabs, a trauma specialist at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, told reporters.
“Despite extensive surgery,” he said, Mr. Hughes, “did not make very much improvement, and unfortunately, as a consequence of the injury, he died.”
Mr. Hughes was playing in a domestic game in Sydney on Tuesday when the ball struck him in a part of the neck that was not protected by his helmet. The force was such that his vertebral artery was pierced, prompting significant bleeding to the brain, news reports said. Physicians induced a coma as they sought to save him.
Cricket balls resemble baseballs but are heavier and routinely reach speeds of around 90 miles per hour. Bowlers use various techniques, from relatively slow spin bowling, which seeks to outwit batters, to so-called bouncers that are meant to rear up from the ground and hurtle toward the batter’s upper body.
In a tally, The Associated Press listed only four deaths since 1870 caused by cricket balls striking batters. Before Mr. Hughes, the most recent was Darryn Randall, 32, in South Africa last year, The A.P. said.
“The word tragedy gets used too often in sport, but this freak accident is now real-life tragedy,” said James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, the sport’s governing body in that country.
“Without doubt, he was a rising star whose best cricket was in front of him,” he said.
As cricket fans mourned, the Australian flag was lowered to half-staff over cricket grounds in Sydney and Melbourne. Several scheduled games were suspended as far afield as Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, where Pakistan was playing New Zealand.
Cricket stars from Australia, Britain, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka and elsewhere registered shock, while the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said that Mr. Hughes had been “a young man living out his dreams.”
“What happened has touched millions of Australians,” he said. “For a young life to be cut short playing our national game seems a shocking aberration.”
Shane Warne, an Australian sports commentator and former spin bowler, said on Twitter: “Woken to the horrific news about Hughesy !
I cannot describe the sadness I feel for the Hughes family & fellow cricketplayers,so so sad.”
The ball that struck Mr. Hughes had been bowled by Sean Abbott, 22, and some sporting figures extended their sympathy to him.
“That ball could have been bowled at any time in any game,” Jonathan Agnew, the British cricket commentator and former player, said on Twitter. “Tragic that it should end like this for the Hughes family, and for Sean Abbott.”
The perils of fast bowling are familiar in cricket, and there has been fractious discussion about the dangers facing batters. The death of Mr. Hughes rekindled the debate at a time of increasing concern about the risks of head and brain injuries in other sports, such as football and rugby.
When batting, cricket players usually wear helmets with a grille to protect the face and a dome over the skull. But many of them leave the area at the back of the neck exposed.
“Helmets have made batsmen feel safe in the belief that they cannot be hurt and made batsmen more carefree and careless,” said Geoffrey Boycott, a former England batter.
But unless batters “wear a suit of armor, there are always going to be injuries in cricket,” he wrote in The Telegraph.
There has also been some questioning about the use of bouncers, which strike players on the upper body or on their helmet, but many commentators said that such aggressive tactics were part of the game for players at the peak of the sport.
Mr. Hughes made his debut in first-class cricket at the age of 20 when Australia played South Africa in 2009, scoring 100 runs — an accomplishment known as a century — in back-to-back games in Durban, South Africa.
But he was dropped from the national team later that year, when English bowlers exploited his unorthodox batting techniques to hold down his scores.
He made his last appearance in the national team in 2013, but was fighting his way back, with a score of 63 runs. He was set for a recall to the national team when he was hit on Tuesday.
Mr. Hughes learned to play cricket on his family’s banana plantation and rocketed to early stardom in Australia before playing in England in 2012.
He died batting for South Australia against his former team, New South Wales.
“Despite being in and out of the Australian team during his emerging years, Phillip never complained when he was dropped or overlooked,” said Andrew Jones, the chief executive of New South Wales, according to The A.P. “It was typical of Phillip that he was fighting his way back into the national team again with a fine innings for South Australia before suffering a freak accident.”