‘Doug Bolinger admitted sledging,’ says Hughes’ former teammate!
Oct 12, 2016 at 5:26 PM
There is a new twist in the tale Phil Hughes’ death inquiry as now a player named Mathew Day, a former teammate of Philip Hughes has said that he heard Doug Bollinger admitting that he sledged Philip Hughes and passed the remark “I am going to kill you”.
Earlier, Doug Bollinger himself and few of his teammates David Warner and Bradd Haddin have denied Bollinger using this remark for Hughes. Tom Cooper, the Netherland batsman, who was batting at another end along with Hughes, has also denied the claims stating that he didn’t hear any of those words.
Almost everyone who was present at the time of the tragic incident has denied that Bollinger used this remark but now Matthew Day has come up with this revelation that Bollinger has accepted sledding Hughes as he says “There were six or seven players in the group. I can’t remember all of the players but Doug Bollinger was one of the group. There was general discussion regarding the circumstances of the match. At one stage, Bollinger said words to the effect of: ‘One of my sleds was ‘I am going to kill you’. I can’t believe I said that. I’ve said things like that in the past but I am never going to say it again.”
Kristina Stern, lawyer of Hughes family, in her statement said “One of the issues identified in my opening statement was the nature of the play that afternoon and if that in any way exacerbated the injury to Phillip Hughes, my submission is … that there is no evidence that any comment or sledging or whatever description you wish to use, exacerbated the injury.”
According to the report in court, Ms. Stern has alleged that it was the deliberate plan of the opposition bowlers to attack Hughes with bouncers but the opposition captain has ruled out this allegation by stating that they introduced a spinner from the other end. They defended themselves by revealing their plan that they just wanted to get Hughes on the back foot, nothing else.
Earlier, the also called in the former international umpire Simon Taufel to have a deep look at each and every delivery. He also submitted his observation to the court after having a look at the video of the match.
Today was the third day of the inquest and it is likely to continue until Friday.