Ponting adds credence to fielder abuse claims

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Cricket365
October 8, 2014

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has confirmed what Kevin Pietersen has written in his book about bowlers shouting at fielders who drop catches, saying he'd witnessed it more than once.

Pietersen has revealed the 'bullying' of fielders by senior bowlers, and former skipper Michael Vaughan also said this was a true and a problem, while more cent players have denied the allegations.

Ponting said on Fox Sports: "We saw them doing it, (James) Anderson was always the same, and (Graeme) Swann. The pointing of fingers and you'd hear a few expletives if there was a misfield or a dropped catch.

"The guys who were doing it were the so-called leaders. That's where the captain has got to come in, not wait and let little things turn into big things. That's what it sounds like has happened in this England team."

He added of the Aussie team's responses to misfields: "If a young bloke had dropped a catch and a bowler went off at him, that's just not acceptable.

"No one means to drop a catch, no one means to bowl a bad ball, no one means to play a bad shot. It just happens in a game and you have to accept it and move on."

Ponting then added that he hadn't been surprised by the revelations, and he said the Aussies always considered the England team a weak unit, even when they were doing well for the most part.

He continued: "They had lot of very good players that were able to achieve a lot of success as a team.

"But if you could just get inside of them and start pulling them apart, we always had a feeling they would implode pretty quickly and that's what's happened over the past 12 months.

"I wasn't surprised with Trott (leaving the Ashes tour), I wasn't surprised with Swann retiring when he did when the ship started to go down, he jumped off pretty quickly, and now all the Pietersen stuff."