Ricky Ponting's Integrity

During the post-match press conference at the end of the second Test match in Sydney (Jan 2008), Ricky Ponting lost his cool when he was questioned by an Indian reporter about his questionable appeals for catches, and said, "If you are actually questioning my integrity in the game, you should not even be standing....". (The full report may be seen in the blog of G.Rajaraman, the Delhi based reporter. http://rajreflects.blogspot.com/2008/01/losing-respect-and-getting-under.html)

Well, His Royal Highness Ricky Ponting, sitting in regal splendour in his royal Durbar has decreed that only sycophantic Aussie media reporters, who will swallow gleefully whatever juicy tidbits he will hand them, are welcome in his press conferences and any pesky outsiders who put him in a spot have no business to be there. The supreme arrogance for which the Aussies have earned some notoriety is very much on view in this simple statement. And considering the fact that it was aimed at a reporter from India, a certain colonial racist mind-set may also be seen in this behaviour.


At the outset Ponting should understand that a person's honesty and integrity are not recognised by others based on one's own assertion or command. These traits are recognised when a person displays them regularly in his behaviour over a period of time. For example Adam Gilchrist has earned a reputation for walking when he snicks a catch behind even when the umpire is somewhat unsighted and is not so sure about it. In his case, if he is not so sure himself about whether he has snicked or not, and so waits for the umpire to adjudicate, nobody will find a flaw in it or accuse him of lack of integrity. But in this one single match itself, Ponting as well as Symonds and Clarke have compromised themselves on their honesty and integrity scale by not walking, and capitalising on the incompetence of the umpire who spared them, or waited for the umpire's decision even though he knew he was out, as in the case of Clarke.


One is reminded of a very juicy story in this context. A multi-millionaire was dancing with a stunning blonde and he whispered in her ears whether she would agree to sleep with him for one night for one million dollars. She gleefully accepted the proposition. A minute later he said, how about a hundred thousand dollars. She frowned a bit and said, ok, if you are so hard up. Then he scaled it down to one thousand dollars. She flared up and asked, "Do you think I am a whore?" He coolly replied, "Is there any doubt about it. I am only trying to fix the price." Ponting and his men have compromised their honesty and integrity in public in front of a stadium full of people and millions of fans around the world watching TV. What is the worth of fretting and fuming and saying, how dare you question my integrity?

Some scribes, including Indians, have tried to be too smart by half in saying that Sachin and Laxman also have escaped some doubtful lbw calls and then gone on to their centuries. What a comparison!! It is like chalk and cheese. In the case of lbw the batsman cannot judge whether the ball would have hit the stumps from where it hit his leg, except when he has played back so much to be very close to rhe stumps. Whereas in the case of snicking behind, the batsman knows he has touched the ball and it has been taken cleanly, and still dishonestly stands there for the umpire to decide.

Ponting's and his team-mates' honesty and integrity are in tatters indeed.