By Daniel Brettig
Copyright theage
The fake post claimed Ponting had made the remarks on the British pay TV channel Sky Sports, which is not broadcasting the tournament. Australian players such as Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood had also been falsely attributed as commenting critically about India or Pakistan during the April conflict.
Ponting’s manager James Henderson emphatically reiterated that the former Australian captain had made the comments. “The quotes are completely false,” he said. “Ricky categorically did not make those comments.”
India’s refusal to shake hands or acknowledge the Pakistan players followed a decision by the Indian government to allow sporting contact to continue between the two countries in multilateral tournaments but not in bilateral matches – formalising a custom that has been in place since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
After the game, Suryakumar explained why the team had elected to abandon sportsmanship.
“Our government and BCCI, we were aligned. Together, we came here, we took a call and I feel we came here just to play the game. And we gave the proper reply,” Suryakumar said in Dubai. “I feel a few things in life are ahead of sportsman spirit.
