NSW bowler Doug Bollinger told Phillip Hughes' friend he had said "I am going to kill you" on the playing field before the South Australian batsman was fatally struck by a ball, a coroner's court has been told.
At a Sydney inquest into Hughes' death, cricketers have testified they can't recall Bollinger making the alleged sledge, which the Hughes' family was concerned had been directed at the 25-year-old or his batting partner Tom Cooper.
Hughes died two days after being struck on the neck by a bouncer bowled by Sean Abbott during a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney on November 25, 2014.
But in a written statement to the inquest, former Tasmanian cricketer Matthew Day said Bollinger told him at an event after Hughes had died that he'd made the sledge.
"I can't believe I said that," Day recalled Bollinger saying in front of six or seven cricketers.
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"I've said things like that in the past but I am never going to say that again."
The Hughes family's barrister Greg Melick SC has told the inquest Hughes' brother Jason recalls being told about the sledge by Cooper.
Cooper denied the claim when he took the stand on Tuesday.
