New ‘Sydney Test revelations’ cast more doubts in Ponting’s mind over ’sweet success’

SYDNEY - Australian captain Ricky Ponting has admitted that he has growing concerns about whether his team’s victory in the Sydney Test against Pakistan was as genuine as it seemed.

Australia had won the controversial Test in January after Pakistan suffered a dramatic collapse and committed several fielding errors.

“I probably have a few more doubts now that there have been some allegations made about some of the finer points and littler things that happened during that Sydney Test match,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ponting, as saying.

“The one thing I’m very protective of though is the performance that we put up that day … touch wood the Sydney Test match is not one that has anything untoward happening out of it because I really feel that coming off the ground that day, that’s one of the proudest moments of my career,” he added.

Ponting’s comments come after a new documentary claimed that the International Cricket Council (ICC) was aware that London-based bookie Mazhar Majeed was a suspect person before Pakistan’s tour of Australia earlier this year.

Majeed was exposed by a British tabloid sting in which he was discussing spot-fixing options for the recent Test match between Pakistan and England at Lord’s.

He was also secretly filmed bragging about the money he had made in an alleged fix in January’s Sydney Test between Australia and Pakistan.

According to ABC’s ‘Four Corners’, the ICC was aware that Majeed was a person of interest before the tour of Australia, yet it kept Cricket Australia in the dark.

It also claimed the sport’s governing body was not investigating the controversial Test.

“We are not specifically investigating the Sydney Test. We’ve kept it open, we’ve concluded in the end that it was a dysfunctional team, but we haven’t got sufficient evidence,” ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat told ABC.

“We haven’t got any other evidence (other than Majeed’s bragging) to back that up, we need to put the pieces of the puzzle together before we can be comfortable that the Test needs to be investigated,” he added. (ANI)