Why’s Ponting raking up a 27-year-old issue, asks Chauhan

Chetan Chauhan isn’t impressed with Ricky Ponting’s jibe at Sunil Gavaskar. The Australia skipper highlighted the incident when Sunil Gavaskar, upset with the umpire’s LBW decision (Sunny believed he had hit the ball) and fuming after a verbal spat with Dennis Lillee, marched off with non-striker Chauhan in protest .

In his ‘Captain’s Diary 2008’ Ponting said that former cricketers have adopted a holier-than-thou attitude, especially when they vilify Australia. “The most laughable aspect is when I hear former players complaining, as though they never put a toe out of line in their day.

I still have a vivid image of Sunil Gavaskar angrily trying to take his opening partner off the MCG with him in 1981 when he was given out lbw in a Test, but to hear him today you’d think he was positively angelic when he was the best opening batsman in the world,” Ponting wrote.

Chauhan told DNA: “Just because Sunny made a mistake it doesn’t mean that the Australians have the right to make mistakes. When you play cricket you try to learn from other people’s mistakes.”

Chauhan and Gavaskar opened in 36 Tests for India and made 3,010 runs together. “Sunny lost his cool after being adjudged LBW. He was clearly not out and he walked off on the spur of the moment,” Chauhan added.

However, the former Test opener, who was also manager during India’s high-strung tour Down Under last season, believed that the Australians are just “poor losers”.

“Why is Ponting raking up a 27-year-old issue? Rather than trying to dig out stuff from history he must try to look inward and see if the Australian team is playing the game in the right spirit.”