Cricket: Warne fires a broadside

Australian captain Ricky Ponting yesterday stood by Shane Warne's side as the legspinner defended himself against claims he unfairly sledged a young opponent while captaining Hampshire in an English county match last weekend.

Sussex captain Chris Adams said Warne publicly humiliated English fringe batsman Matt Prior, 23, with a verbal spray at Hove.

Warne claims he had a go at Prior because he chested Warne's Australian and Hampshire team-mate Simon Katich when the pair collided mid-pitch.

"I wanted to try to get under Prior's skin because of the way he chested Katich on the field," Warne told the Times newspaper.

"I thought cricket was a non-contact sport. I was sticking up for my mate and letting Prior know what I thought about his behaviour.

"I think Adams needs to put his own house in order before he goes complaining to the newspapers."

Warne said he was tired of going "tit for tat" against county captains such as Adams and Essex's Ronnie Irani, who clashed with the Australian last year.

Warne has a long record of sledging - most famously in 1993 when he gave South African batsman Andrew Hudson an ugly send-off in a test match - but Ponting said his side had reduced it drastically since October 2003, when the players abolished personal insults directed at opponents under the spirit of cricket's code.

Ponting, who planned to telephone Warne to find out exactly what happened, has overseen a behavioural record now significantly better than that under his predecessor Steve Waugh.

"I think certainly in the public's eyes, but more importantly I think everyone that you speak to involved in the game, have been really impressed with what we've been able to do to our on-field attitudes," Ponting said.

"Unfortunately for Shane he's always going to be in the media spotlight, there's nowhere for him to hide, and often a lot of the things he's involved in are highlighted and bigger issues are made of them."

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland was concerned about Adams' allegations as a captain-against-captain complaint, but indicated he would take no action against Warne, who was "well-versed" in the players' code.

"It concerns me to hear about that, but at the same time I'm very confident in the way that the Australian players have adopted the Spirit of Australian Cricket and the way they're going about it," Sutherland said. "I think if you have a look at Shane's record in international cricket over the last year and you ask Ricky - he's been out on the field with him - I would have thought that he's subscribed very well to the players' code."

Ponting also defended his Kookaburra bat, which is the subject of an ICC review because of a thin layer of graphite on the back of it.

The MCC wants the bat banned because it claimed it added unfair power.

Ponting stressed he had used the same Kahuna bat last summer and that Kookaburra had only added the graphite sticker - designed to strengthen the blade - for the recent tour of New Zealand.

"Kookaburra had done everything inside the spirit of the game," he said.

- AAP