Sydney, Feb 25 : Cricket Australia's chief executive James Sutherland came out in support of former captain Ricky Ponting over claims he acted selfishly after his axing from Australia's one day international team.

Former Australian pacer Geoff Lawson, described Ponting's media conference after he was axed as "one of the most self-indulgent little pieces of self-interest I've seen for a long time".

"I listened very intently to it and there was a lot of 'I'..'I this' and 'I that' and how 'I'm good for the team' and I'm really annoyed by it," Lawson told Sydney's Sky Sports Radio.

Cricket Australia chief executive Sutherland all but specifically rebutted Lawson by expressing his bemusement at "people who have made [negative] comment in the past few days about Ricky's press conference... saying that it was self-indulgent".

"He was asked a question in there about 'Well, have you come to announce you're playing on?' and I thought he answered it beautifully," Sutherland said yesterday.

"He [Ponting] basically said 'Well, there's been this speculation and I feel that the fans deserve to know', there's nothing self-indulgent about that. It's actually delivering the facts and telling people what has gone through his mind in arriving at that decision. The fans deserve that, and he obviously did as well."

Ponting was dropped from the Australia ODI squad after a dismal run of form. He scored 18 runs in five matches of the ongoing tri-series involving Sri Lanka and India at an average of 3.6.(IANS)