Australia captain Ricky Ponting has apologised for a ”serious error of judgement” after confronting umpire Asad Rauf over a wide delivery in their one-day match against the West Indies on Tuesday.
Ponting was fined his entire match fee for breaching the International Cricket Council (ICC) Code of Conduct during his country’s 78-run victory in the first DLF Cup match.
He was found guilty of ”showing dissent at an umpire’s decision” by ICC match referee Chris Broad in a hearing after play concluded.
”Having had the opportunity to sleep on the incident, I know I made a serious error of judgement,” Ponting said in a statement.
”I regret the approach I made to umpire Asad Rauf and realise I shouldn’t have behaved in the way I did.”
Because it was Ponting’s second such incident in the past 12 months — the other took place during the second Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in April — his punishment was automatically raised to a level-two offence.
Level-two breaches carry a minimum penalty of 50% of a player’s match fee and a maximum penalty of their full match fee and/or a one Test match or two one-day international ban.
Ponting responded to Rauf’s decision to call a wide in the 33rd over off Shane Watson’s bowling by walking up him from his fielding position to query the decision.
”A captain should set the example for his players to follow and it is not acceptable for any player, let alone a captain, to question an umpire’s decision,” said Broad.
Ponting said he would personally say sorry to Rauf and had called Cricket Australia’s acting chief executive Michael Brown to apologise.
”International cricket matches are passionate affairs but as the captain of the Australian cricket team, I understand it is my responsibility to uphold the spirit of the game and I know that through my actions I let myself and my team down,” he said.
Broad reached his conclusion after a hearing attended by the three umpires and Ponting, as well as Australia team manager Steve Bernard and coach John Buchanan. — AFP
