‘Ponting lacks leadership qualities’

Melbourne, January 13: Former Australia spinner Greg Matthews lashed out at Ricky Ponting for turning down Anil Kumble’s peace offer to solve the brewing racism row and said such a thing would not have happened under Mark Taylor.

“This would never have happened under Mark Taylor,” the former off-spinner said. Matthews was of the view that had Ponting, or anyone in Cricket Australia shown the leadership qualities of Taylor, the entire saga would not have snowballed into such a huge crisis.

“One single phone call, one act of humility from our leader or from Cricket Australia’s bosses would have resolved everything. How did it get to this stage?” Matthews told The Sunday Telegraph.

Matthews felt the tumultuous Sydney Test, that was sullied by poor umpiring, a racism row involving Harbhajan Singh and some unsporting behaviour by the hosts, tarnished the image of all parties involved in it.

He was particularly upset with the hosts and said a captain like Taylor would have never allowed it to spiral. “I am truly amazed that someone in a position of power at Cricket Australia just didn’t say to Ricky, ‘have a talk to Anil and sort this out for the good of the game’. Why didn’t that happen?

“This would never have happened under Taylor. Mark is a man of unbelievable integrity. He had a great ability to talk to people, not at them, and even though he had some fiery characters in his team, he did a phenomenal job through his humility and standing as a human being,” Matthews said.

“Ricky gets enormous accolades through his performances on the field. But on this issue, he has to wear some responsibility,” he added.

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