Ricky Ponting admonished by ICC for damaging TV after World Cup game

The Australia captain, Ricky Ponting, has been reprimanded by the International Cricket Council after damaging a television set in the team dressing room following his dismissal against Zimbabwe on Monday.

Ponting was charged with a level one breach of the ICC code of conduct under clause 2.1.2, which covers "abuse of cricket equipment or clothing, ground equipment or fixtures and fittings during an international match".

He accepted the charge and the sanction issued by the match referee, Roshan Mahanama, negating the need for a formal hearing.

The ICC settled for the low-level charge and minimum sanction – level one offences can carry punishments up to a fine of 50% of the player's match fee – after accepting that the damage was accidental.

Their statement noted that "the damage occurred when he threw down a piece of equipment which bounced off his kit bag and hit the corner of the television".

Mahanama added: "Ricky knows that his action was in breach of the code, involving a brief moment of frustration. That said, it was clear that the damage he caused was purely accidental and without malice, he apologised shortly after the incident at the ground and immediately agreed to pay for the damage."

BIG FM kicks-off Boundaries For Books Campaign

92.7 BIG FM, the official radio partner for the ICC Cricket World Cup launches on air campaign, Boundaries for Books, in association with Reliance Life Insurance, ICC and Room to Read, to literally ‘hit illiteracy for a six’. This radio campaign is being launched as an extension to Group Company, Reliance Life Insurance’s property ‘Boundaries for Books’, wherein every single six will provide at least 30 disadvantaged children with access to fully functional libraries with local language and English books as well as trained teachers.

The on air campaign will see the likes of Sachin, Dhoni, Sehwag, Yuvraaj, Ganmbhir, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Jacques Kallis to name a few along with leading Bollywood stars, coming forward in support of the initiative, by donating money to the cause as well as encouraging listeners to donate Rs. 50 or more for this noble cause. The RJ’s of 92.7 BIG FM will play a responsible role also come forward in full support, inspiring, motivating and spreading awareness to exhort the general public to come join the movement to fight illiteracy. The campaign kicks off on February 19 and will run for a 45 day period culminating with the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

The campaign will bring into play some excellently synchronized innovations, which include hot key’s referring to the ‘sixer’ as ‘shiksher’, which in Hindi connotes education imparter. Similarly there will be promos that say ‘illiteracy ke chakke chudao’ – which is a commonly used slang in Hindi and to ensure the entire station reverberates the sentiment of the campaign, the station jingle will have kids crooning to the brand-line Suno Sunao Life Banao, which will have a rhyming extension of khelo padao life banao!

The procedure for donation will be through drop boxes placed across the 45 Station Network of BIG FM, sms format – where listeners can sms ‘books (space) donation amount’ to 5667711 and also through an online option where you can log on to www.facebook.com/reliancelifeinsurance

Commenting on the campaign, Tarun Katial, CEO, Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. said, “We are using our strength as a media platform, to amplify the reach and effectiveness of this noble campaign across India, through our network. We are confident that this initiative, we will garner the whole-hearted support of our listeners who will come forward to lend further scale and magnitude to this cause.”