** SYDNEY, Nov 8: ** Australia cricket captain Ricky Ponting offered to apologise on Wednesday to any Indian officials who felt insulted by his team’s victory celebrations after the Champions Trophy final this week.
Ponting said the Australians intended no offence and admitted the flak they had received for allegedly manhandling Indian cricket chief Sharad Pawar off the presentation stage had marred their first successful Champions Trophy campaign.
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“It probably has had a little bit of the gloss taken off, but I’ll be doing the best I can to get my point across to the concerned people in India and let them know we were not trying to embarrass them or anything like that,” he told reporters.
“We were all pretty keen to get our hands on the trophy and celebrate accordingly.”
Indian cricket stars Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar criticised the Australians’ behaviour after the eight-wicket win over the West Indies in Sunday’s final in Mumbai.
Ponting, visibly impatient after the long presentation ceremony, gestured towards Pawar with his forefinger, asking him to quickly give away the trophy which Australia had won for the first time in five attempts.
“I was standing just behind the guy waiting to be presented with the trophy and it wasn’t coming my way so I reached around to accept the trophy from him,” he said.
Indian newspapers displayed pictures of Australian batsman Damien Martyn pushing Pawar with his right hand, urging him to get off the stage so the team could pose with the trophy.
Ponting said he was aware the Australian cricketers were representing their country and promised they would be more aware of protocol in future.
The Australian captain said he was willing to apologise to Pawar.
“If we all feel that it’s relevant then I’ll certainly do that,” he said.
