Match
Fixing News
Ponting admits error in keeping bookie offer secret
MELBOURNE: Australian Test cricketer Ricky Ponting admitted on Thursday
that he made an error in not telling the Australian Cricket Board (ACB)
sooner about being offered money by a bookmaker in Sydney last year. The
bookmaker approached Ponting at a greyhound meeting and offered him a four-figure
sum for information about team selections and pitch conditions. Unlike
team-mates Mark Waugh and Shane Warne, who took US$3,600 and US$3,000,
respectively, from an Indian bookmaker to provide similar information during
the
Sri Lankan tour of 1994, Ponting turned down the offer.
"He said he would like to know in advance about the line-up for each
match and what information he could get about the pitch conditions for
each game and in return for that information he said he would pay me a
four-figure amount. Ponting said he did not know the name of the bookmaker,
but would probably recognise him if he saw him again. The batsman said
he would provide as much information about him (the bookmaker) as possible
to the ACB inquiry into player conduct, which would begin next week and
run until the end of February. Ponting said he told his manager, Sam Halverson,
about the approach and then decided to let the matter rest, believing it
was not a serious issue. He admitted that he must have told the ACB of
the approach immediately rather than waiting until last Tuesday's team
meeting, where players were asked if they had been approached in light
of the Waugh and Warne scandal. "I didn't think too much of it at the time
and I haven't thought too much about it since, until it came up last week,"
he added. Two other former Test players, Australian Greg Matthews and New
Zealander Danny Morrison, have also said they were approached by bookmakers.
The ACB, which covered up the Waugh and Warne scandal for four years, was
informed of the approach to Ponting the day before the pair apologised
for their actions at a news conference. But it did not reveal the approach
to Ponting, despite Chief Executive Mal Speed being repeatedly asked if
other players had been contacted by bookmakers.
Ponting said that was done to enable him to concentrate on his performance
in the third Test against England. But it did not help the Tasmanian, who
made just 10 and five, giving him only 47 runs in his last four Test innings.
He is now in danger of losing his place to South Australian skipper Darren
Lehmann for the Boxing Day Ashes Test in Melbourne, but denied that the
slump in his form and the fact the bookmaker approach was about to be revealed
were linked. "It wasn't playing on my mind when I was at the crease," he
said. "It (his dismissals) was just a basic concentration thing, it wasn't
because this thing was playing on my mind." Ponting, who has made no secret
of his love of a bet and recently released a biography entitled 'Punter',
has asked that he be the first player to appear at the inquiry.
Back
