Ricky Ponting, the Aussie skipper, has come up with a way of restricting India’s bid to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Thursday’s final match of the series in Nagpur – he has said some of the verbal clashes between Australia and India did not look good in Delhi.

Ponting was referring to the verbal spat between VVS Laxman and Mitchell Johnson, on the last day of the third Test at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium. The argument got so intense that officials had to intervene to ease things down.

Speaking in Johnson’s defense, Ponting said: “There was no real malice from anything Mitchell had to say. It was about some of the comments that VVS had made in the newspapers, to tell the truth. That was all he was talking about. The umpires spoke to me and said it happened three times in the over, I think, and it wasn’t acceptable.”

The Australia team felt they were the only side trying to win on the last day of the third Test, but their below-par bowling unit was unable to make the required breakthroughs and India declared twice in the match. Ponting wants to fix that situation in Nagpur and will consider changes to his attack.

Despite the regular incidents, Ponting said they were not a result of Australia’s frustration at the inability to break through
India. He said: “I’d like to think those things aren’t getting to us on the field. We’ve got a pretty clear job to do.”