Akram defends Sunny, slams Ricky

New Delhi, November 20: : Former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram has slammed Ricky Ponting for his "Sunny no angel" comment, saying the Australian captain has chosen a wrong cricketer, who has unblemished international stature, to shore up the sale of his book.

Akram was appalled at why Ponting chose to attack Gavaskar by writing in his just-published, 'Captain's Diary 2008', that Sunil Gavaskar was no saint during his playing days.

"A player of Ricky Ponting's stature should not bad mouth a legend like Sunil Gavaskar. I don't know why Ponting is saying all these things, but one thing is for sure that Sunny speaks his mind. He (Gavaskar) is a neutral guy and he is amazingly great," Akram told a website.

Gavaskar has been a known critic of Australians' on-field bullying tactics and Ponting, never shy of any spat with the former India captain, said the legendary batsman was no angel in his playing days.

"I still have a vivid image of Sunil Gavaskar angrily trying to take his opening partner off the MCG with him in 1981 when he was given out LBW in a Test match, but to hear him today you'd think he was positively angelic when he was the best opening batsman in the world," Ponting had written in his book 'Captain's Diary 2008'.

Akram was clearly not amused by Ponting's comments but felt that will barely dent Gavaskar's esteem. "Sunny is also one of the players from India who is loved in Pakistan. He is respected the world over and Ponting's comments won't affect Sunny's image,"

Obliquely hinting at the series of books being written by Australian players, Akram said cricketers or those associated with the game will not shy away from taking that extra step to market themselves and make some more money.

"This is part and parcel of top sports. Cricket has so much media attention, that even during an informal chat the media can extract a quote and suit themselves," says Akram.

"These things have happened before and will continue and I don't think that these petty things will affect cricket."

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.

Ponting the great seer by Mandesh Gharat on 2008-11-21 14:36:10.2961+05:30
How old was Ponting. He must have been still in his nappies. To remember a incident which happened 27 years ago. He must be having very good memory. But his memory gets shorter which involve Australian players with their follies. He must also remember that at that time there were no nutreal umpires and must of the test players of these era will remember that Australia played with 13 players.

Reply Forward

akram slams ricky by Sathyanarayanan on 2008-11-21 11:26:42.503386+05:30
Ricky ponting is still not out of the nightmare of indian tour.He should be bold enough to accept the truth this team with abscence of Warne,Mcgrath,Langer is a mediocre team and the truth of the fact is that aussies were finding difficult to get all the wickets of indian team.the victory of a person is to accept the failures and overcome them to win in future,if u complain about others always remeber there are n no of fingers that will be pointed at u"

Reply Forward

spell check by Dips on 2008-11-21 07:49:50.45505+05:30
littlejohnny, do u know how to spell learn and it is not lear.go back to grade 1.

Reply Forward

Spell Check by Mark on 2008-11-21 07:33:34.181973+05:30
You idiots need to lear how to spell, loser is spelt loser, not looser...ok losers !!

Reply Forward

Cricket Australia. by Dipankar Ghosh on 2008-11-21 04:01:50.492619+05:30
Australians are bad loosers?They are the trash of England collected in another country.

Reply Forward

pontings message by noeldas on 2008-11-20 20:46:51.175302+05:30
I feel all these allegations made up by Ponting are petty and baseless. As Gavaskar quoted how can a boy when he was in his seventh year of age understand what has happened at the Melbourne cricket test match. Gavasker is manohar which in kerala we say manoharam means wonderful and that is it. I dont feel ponting can make any mark on gavaskars reputation by doing so.

Reply Forward

Ricky- The barking dog by aravindakar on 2008-11-20 20:00:51.644509+05:30
It a ni guester from the great Cricketer Akram,, Pointing is barking dog now he dont know how to bite after loosing to india

Reply Forward

Indo-Pak ties. by Hassan on 2008-11-20 19:15:26.824644+05:30
It is fact now that Pakis are recognizing our country and status in the world...all these years they tried to destroy our nation..but failed utterly..now they come to play in our country and ear good money which infact is showing our big heart!....

Reply Forward

Wasim is a legend by makee on 2008-11-20 16:20:33.546524+05:30
Hey wasim , you are a hero!

Reply Forward