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Hughes short balls ‘not excessive’
- Updated: October 11, 2016
Phillip Hughes’ batting partner Tom Cooper denied his team-mate and former house-mate was subjected to an “ungentlemanly” number of bouncers on the afternoon he was fatally injured in a Sheffield Shield match, the New South Wales Coronial inquest has heard.
On the day Australia’s vice-captain David Warner also gave evidence via video link from Cape Town in South Africa, Cooper was subjected to hard questioning by the Hughes family’s legal representative, Greg Melick SC, and left the witness stand in tears.
Apart from the question of how many bouncers Hughes was subjected to before he was struck on the side of the neck by a short ball from Sean Abbott on November 25, 2014, causing the arterial injury that led to his death at St Vincent’s Hospital two days later, Cooper was also pressed on a subsequent conversation he had with Hughes’ brother Jason.
It is from that exchange that Doug Bollinger’s alleged sledge of “I’m going to kill you” was meant to have emerged. However, Cooper was emphatic in his denial of ever having heard or relayed such a phrase. Cooper did acknowledge that Hughes faced a “noticeable” increase in the number of short balls after the lunch break, …
