NEW DELHI: Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting is not convinced with assertions that ball tampering and sledging are deep-rooted in his country's cricketing culture but is relieved that the embarrassing episode of South Africa is coming to a close with the disgraced trio deciding against challenging their bans.
Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and David Warner have announced that they have accepted the sanctions imposed on them by Cricket Australia for their role in ball tampering during the South Africa series.
Cricket Australia is reviewing whether issues like ball tampering and sledging have been part of country's cricketing culture but the straight-talking Ponting refused such perception.
"Cultural issue is a really interesting thing for me.
If we wind the clock a couple of months back, when Australia won the Ashes like they did, there was no talk about cultural problems or issues whatsoever," Ponting answered to a query from PTI.
"But I think a lot of times, cultural things can be blown out of proportion, when the reality inside the dressing room is completely different than what it is spoken about all the time.
Honestly feel, on this occasion, I think cultural stuff spoken about is being blown out of proportion to a certain degree," the legendary batsman said.
The two-time World Cup winning captain admitted that it was a shocker for him as to what the trio indulged in and the reaction of Australian public was justified.
"This is the first time I am answering a single question about what happened in South Africa over the past couple of weeks.
As a past player and captain, I was quite shocked to see what actually took place out on the field.
But the pleasing thing for me is that for the guys, the whole issue is now starting to come to an end," Ponting said during his media interaction organised by his IPL side Delhi Daredevils.
Ponting said that he understood the disappointment of the general Australian public as they have always looked up to their cricket team in a different manner.
"When I was back in Australia a week and a half ago, if you think it was big news out over here, it was astronomical how big an issue it was in Australia and rightly so.
"We as Australians like to play the game hard and fair and our fans expect Australian players to play that way. Reaction of Australian public felt that Australian players had not played the game in a fair way," he said.
Ponting is relieved that the Australian team can now focus on the rebuilding process.
"It seems like it's coming to an end. It is good for the game's sake.
Now that the series is over, good thing for players' sake is to try and get away from it all as hard as it might seem for them.
They then start rebuilding what has sort of collapsed for them over last couple of weeks," said Ponting.
The man with 27,000 international runs however didn't give a direct answer to what he would have done had he been a Cricket Australia official.
"I think it is a hypothetical question as to what my stand would have been.
There's a very big picture for world game's sake and CA reacted what the world game pretty much demanded.
World game and Australian public demanded that these players be treated in a certain way.
"It would appear that 12-month ban is very severe but look at what ICC sanction was. It was 1 game ban on Steve Smith and no sanctions for the other two. Now we have nine months for Bancroft and 1 year for other two. So there is a vast gap between sanction that CA imposed and what ICC deemed fair.So it's a hypothetical question," Ponting opined.