Hughes inquest begins in Sydney

The NSW Coroner's Court has heard there was no planned targeting of Phillip Hughes with short-pitched bowling on the day he was fatally struck during a Sheffield Shield match at the SCG in November 2014.

The NSW Coroner is this week holding a public inquest into the tragic death of Hughes, who was struck on the neck while batting for South Australia in a Shield match against New South Wales.

The 25-year-old died in hospital two days later as a result of a traumatic basal subarachnoid haemorrhage caused by the blow.

NSW Coroner's Court to open Hughes inquest 

Players David Warner, Doug Bollinger, Sean Abbott and Brad Haddin – who was the NSW captain for the match – have provided written statements submitted into evidence, as well as South Australia batsman Tom Cooper who was at the non-striker's end when Hughes was hit.

Counsel Assisting the Coroner, Kristina Stern SC, told the court the NSW players' evidence indicated they did not have a short-pitch plan to claim Hughes' wicket, and instead at lunch had discussed a leg-stump line from over the wicket in an attempt to induce a nick.

An opening batsman, Hughes had thwarted the NSW bowlers throughout the first session, and increased his scoring rate into the second session, during which he brought up a half-century.

Ms Stern said the statement from Cooper indicated he felt there was more short-pitched bowling after lunch in an attempt to dry up the runs and that Hughes "was making it look easy".

The court heard renowned Australian umpire Simon Taufel has studied footage from the entire day's play, and indicated there was 23 deliveries that could be considered short-pitched bouncers.

Taufel's report, included in the Coroner's brief of evidence, says he felt there was no evidence of a repeated short-pitch tactic and nothing for umpires to act on to warn any NSW bowler for the tactic.

Taufel's report said he thought Hughes had been playing the short-pitch deliveries "with ease".

Part of the Coroner's objectives for this inquest are to examine the nature of play in that Shield match to determine "whether they in any way exacerbated the injury" to Hughes, said Ms Stern.

In his opening remarks, State Coroner Michael Barnes said the inquest was "not to lay any blame".

"(Hughes's) death was a terrible accident, but it doesn't mean cricket can't be made safer," Mr Barnes said.

Mr Barnes added "cricket is not a dangerous or violent sport" and that it holds "a special place in Australian culture".

Before court, Hughes's manager, James Henderson made a brief statement on behalf his family, who are attending the inquest.

"As you would appreciate this is going to be a very, very, very difficult week for Greg, Virginia, Jason and Megan," Henderson said.

"They haven't been looking forward to this week as you would imagine. And they're hoping that perhaps there will be a positive come out of Phillip's death as we go through this next five days inside the Coroner's Court."

Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland also spoke before court.

"We never want to see a tragedy like this happen on the cricket field and to that end we have the utmost respect for the coronial inquest and the process that we all need to go through this week," Sutherland said.

"But we do hope something good comes from this process.

"It's an emotionally challenging time for those involved and our role now is to support those so they can assist the coroner as he works through the process and presents findings later on."