Phil Hughes inquest: Batting partner denies claims bowler Doug Bollinger told Hughes 'I’m going to kill you'

Phillip Hughes: 1988-2014
Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Phil Hughes’s batting partner on the day he died has denied suggestions the fast bowler Doug Bollinger had told Hughes “I’m going to kill you”.

The 25-year-old collapsed after being struck in the neck by a ball during a Sheffield Shield match in November 2014 and died two days later from the resulting haemorrhage in his brain.

It had been claimed at the start of the inquest into Hughes’s death, which is expected to reach its conclusion on Friday, that Bollinger had made the remark. But on day two, Tom Cooper said: “If he had said that I would have remembered it. I am confident it didn’t happen.”

Barrister for the Hughes family, Greg Melick, claimed Cooper had attributed the words to Bollinger in a conversion with Hughes’s brother, Jason. Melick said: “Mr Cooper, I suggest to you, you told Jason these words and you are now denying them,” to which Cooper replied “no”.

Bollinger has denied making the remark. Cooper, who was housemates with Hughes at the time of his death and left the inquest in tears, also rejected suggestions that Hughes had been peppered with an unnecessarily high number of short-pitched deliveries during the match between South Australia and New South Wales. “He was on top and they were trying to stop him from scoring,” said Cooper, who said Hughes had not raised any concerns about the bowling at the time.

“He was scoring runs at will pretty much. It was obviously a tactic to stop that from happening.

“I guess he was targeted but not in an ungentlemanly way. The tactic was used against him but it wasn’t for any other reason than to stop the run rate.”

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