Ponting warms to ICC crackdown

Ricky Ponting has expressed his appreciation of the International Cricket Council's efforts to root out illegal bowling actions from the game. Ponting made his comments after the match between Pakistan and West Indies in Brisbane, where Mohammad Hafeez was reported by the umpires and the match referee.

According to ABC Online, Ponting was happy that the ICC were no longer taking the soft option. "They've spent a lot of money on it, technology at different times to be able to I guess get a closer look at some of the suspect actions around the world," he was quoted as saying. "It is good to see now that they are patrolling it very closely and I'm sure that anyone that's outside those boundaries will be pulled up pretty quickly."

Ponting was also insistent that the ongoing wrangle with Cricket Australia over a pay deal wouldn't result in his team losing focus. Cricket Australia has proposed a new payment scheme which has yet to be accepted by the players' representatives.

"Hopefully this whole thing can be sorted out, and obviously what we want is nice smooth negotiations to occur," said Ponting. "It doesn't look like that's the way right now but it's not always the way in any sort of business negotiations, so I'm sure it will sort itself out.

"As I said, we as a player group have got other things to worry about, and that's to perform well tomorrow."