Phillip Hughes was killed after being struck by a ball in a Sheffield Shield match on November 25, 2014. Picture: AAP Image/Dan Peled

Former South Australian batsman Tom Cooper said, “I’m confident it didn’t happen,” adding, “It’s unlikely that Doug would have said that.

“It’s quite personal. It would stick in your mind,” Cooper, 29, said in the witness box on the second day of the Sydney inquest into the death of Phillip Hughes.

“Any comments Doug makes are more funny that derogatory,” Cooper said, but he agreed with counsel assisting the inquest Kristina Stern, SC, that the alleged sledge was “definitely not funny”.

Under questioning by the Hughes family lawyer that he had told Phillip Hughes’ brother Jason not long after the fatal incident that Bollinger had made the comment on field, Cooper said that wasn’t the case.

“I suggest you actually told Jason those words and you are now denying it?” Greg Melick, SC, put to Cooper.

“No,” Cooper said.

South Australian cricketer Tom Cooper arrives to give evidence at the inquiry into the death of cricketer Phillip Hughes at the Downing Centre in Sydney. Picture: AAP Image/David MoirSource:AAP

Phillip Hughes, 25, was struck in the neck by a ball while batting for South Australia against NSW in a Sheffield Shield match on November 25, 2014.

Evidence given at the inquest said a ball travelling at 152km/h lifted Hughes’ head, violently injuring his vertebral artery.

He died from a subarachnoid haemorrhage in St Vincent’s Hospital two days later.

Asked about concerns expressed by the Hughes family at the inquest, which included sledging and the targeting of multiple short-pitched balls by the NSW team against Phillip Hughes, Cooper denied that the play on the day was “ungentlemanly”.

“I guess he was targeted,” Cooper said. “I wouldn’t say in an ungentlemanly way. It wasn’t for any other [reason] than to stop the run rate.”

Phillip Hughes’ parents, Greg and Virginia, and siblings Megan and Jason attended the inquest for the second day on Tuesday.

Cooper said Hughes was well-versed with short ball deliveries and was playing “with ease” on the day he died.

Mr Cooper was asked about comments he had made to Jason Hughes after the tragic incident about the game having “a tough period of play”.

But he said he was referring to his own experience of facing his first balls.

“I had just gone in. They always come in pretty hard with a new batsman.

“I personally felt under pressure. It’s my job to score runs.”

But he denied there was sledging or an excessive number of short balls.

Asked whether on previous times he had played with Phillip Hughes there had been sledging directed at them, Cooper said “yes”.

“There’s always a few comments on the field to unsettle the batsman from all around the field, even the crowd sometimes,” he said.

NSW cricketer Doug Bollinger leaves after giving evidence at the inquiry on Monday into the death of Hughes.Source:Supplied

Cooper said on the afternoon at the SCG before Hughes was fatally struck, his batting partner had been relaxed and “scoring runs at will” when he joined him at the crease.

He described the onslaught by NSW as “absolutely predictable. They behaved as you would expect them to behave.

“There was no big deal.”

He described the Sheffield Shield match as “reasonably quiet in terms of sledging”.

“It was pretty good. We were on top of the game and everyone was pretty relaxed and going about their business as usual.”

Cooper agreed with the Hughes family lawyer that it was possible that Bollinger could have made the the “I’m going to kill you remark” and that he did not recall it.

One of the umpires on the field at the November 25 match, Ashley Barrow, described the lack of sledging in the game as “unusual”.

Barrow agreed that because he was umpiring at short leg, he would not have been able to hear sledges between the batsmen and bowlers.

But he said the exchanges between the teams’ players had been of the “Hi, how are you doing? Good shot” variety.

Mr Barrow said under the rules of umpiring he was entitled to “intervene of our own accord if we think it is outside the spirit of cricket ... if there is a comment of a personal nature towards a batsman”.

But he had not done so on the day.