War of words continues

Sunil Gavaskar has returned fire at Ricky Ponting, who claimed it was “high and mighty” of Gavaskar to criticise the Australian team’s on-field behaviour.

The war of words started when Gavaskar wrote in his India Today column: “They have also been awful in the way they have sometimes behaved on the field much to the chagrin of the traditional fans of the game,” to which Ponting responded by saying: “We all know the way he played his cricket, don’t we? If he is talking about us, what about the way India have played their cricket over the last few years.”

Gavaskar was unapologetic when interviewed by the media today saying if the Australians acted the way they did in a bar, they would be “whacked” someday.

“Some day, some other hot head guy might actually get down and you know whack somebody who abuses him,” Gavaskar said.

“There’s the example of the late David Hookes. Would the Australians who use that kind of language on the field, and not all of them do, in a bar and would they get away with it?

“Would they have a fist coming at their face or not?”

Gavaskar also rebutted Ponting’s comments for India to “have a look at how many Test matches they have won.”

“When he talks about the Indian team not having won matches, we are not talking about winning matches here, we are talking about behaviour on the field,” he told ESPN.