Ponting accepts 'responsibility' for TV incident

Ricky Ponting has accepted that he crossed the line with his dressing-room reaction to being run out against Zimbabwe in Ahmedabad on Monday, but is keen to put the incident behind him. Ponting was reprimanded by the ICC for breaking the Code of Conduct when he threw his groin protector at his kit bag and it bounced up to damage a television, and he said he wished he could take his actions back.

"I think there's a limit [to how much] you can let off steam in a dressing room," Ponting said. "It is a pretty sacred sort of place, an international cricket team dressing room, but there's a line that you can't overstep and when some equipment is damaged in the change room then I accept the responsibility for that happening the other day, albeit by total accident and with no malice involved in it whatsoever. What's happened has happened. I'd like to be able to take it back but I can't. Now we've just got to move on."

The TV incident emerged on the morning after Australia's 91-run victory, but the initial reports in local newspapers incorrectly suggested that an angry Ponting had smashed the set with his bat. Given that Ponting was not even fined for the level one offence, it was not surprising that by Thursday in Nagpur, all he wanted to do was concentrate on the next day's match against New Zealand.

"It was hit by my box that I'd thrown down into my cricket kit," he said. "[There was] some small damage to the TV set; I went and reported it to the team manager straight away, and let him know what had happened. They replaced the television set there and then.

"Some of the stories I've been hearing the last couple of days have been a little bit different than what the list of events actually were. Hopefully by the end of today we can put this all behind us and start worrying about a big game of cricket that's going to take place tomorrow."

The Ahmedabad game was Ponting's 40th World Cup match, making him the most-capped player in the tournament's history. Ponting is yet to lose a World Cup game as captain. If Australia do win against New Zealand in Nagpur it will be Ponting's 24th victory as a World Cup captain.