Dialogue between captains and officials a must - Ponting

Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain, who was docked his entire match fee for arguing a wide-ball call with the umpire in the match against West Indies, has sought clarification over the on-field communication between umpires and captains.

Ponting once again apologised for his behaviour but suggested that there was nothing wrong with a captain approaching the umpires if he felt the situation warranted it. His view hadn't found favour with Chris Broad, the ICC match referee, who fined him after the game finished on Tuesday night.

Speaking to the media before the team left for an afternoon practice session, Ponting said: "I know that's happening even at the board level and ICC level at the moment with the umpires having some input into a lot of that stuff. Chris did say to me the other night that he doesn't see it as appropriate at all for a captain to be even approaching an umpire during the course of the game so there does need to be some clarification there."

Asad Rauf, the Pakistani umpire, was the target of Ponting's ire during the opening game, and Ponting admitted that he had overstepped the line. "It was just one of those heat-of-the-moment sort of things that I tend to get a bit wrapped up in from time to time," he said, before adding that he had no qualms about owning up to his mistakes.

"It's always easy I think to do that, I've always been one when I made a mistake to put my hand up and say that I've done it. It was important for me as a leader of my team. I wanted to get that point across to my team that it's not acceptable. Everyone knows when they've made a mistake. Some people unfortunately don't like owning up to them."

That said, Ponting still believed that there needed to be a dialogue between the captain and on-field officials to smooth over certain situations. "I think it's more the timing of it than not being allowed to do it," he said. "The captain has got to be able to do that at different times over the course of the game, so as long as the timing's okay I think that will continue."