Sport - Sports : General

Ponting, team fined for slow over rate

DUBAI: Australia captain Ricky Ponting has been fined 20 per cent of his match fee because of his team’s slow over rate in the series-ending defeat to India on Monday. Ponting’s team was ruled to be two overs short of its target and his teammates were also fined 10 per cent of match fees after their 172-run loss at Nagpur.

Australia fell up to 10 overs behind the over rate as it tried to bowl India out cheaply on Sunday.

When warned he was far behind, Ponting took his pacemen off and put on slow bowlers Cameron White, Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke to partner the highly effective off spinner Jason Krejza and quicken up the over rate. The result was that India amassed a big score to effectively put the game out of Australia’s reach.

Ponting said after the 2-0 series defeat that he had an obligation “to play the game in the right spirit” and try to bowl 90 overs in a day.

“We speak about it at every team meeting,” he said. “I’ve told the bowlers, the whole team, for a couple of years now that if we keep going the way we are there’s going to be some time or moment where it’s really going to come back and hurt us.” — AP

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu