Sydney, Sept 22: Australia's One-Day cricket Captain Ricky Ponting says he was annoyed by disgraced teammate Shane Warne's madness in taking a banned drug and for the subsequent damaging controversy it caused. Ponting, writing in his just-published diary of Australia's victory in this year's World Cup in southern Africa, says the controversial leg-spinner should have known better than not to take the banned diuretic pill. "Every year we (Australian team) have a lecture on drugs," Ponting wrote, "and I know I understand the issues well enough to check everything I take before I take it.
"That is common sense, and for Warney, who has been playing international cricket for over a decade, to ignore that approach is just madness."
Warne is serving his 12-month ban for taking a banned fluid-loss pill, detected in a doping test prior to the World Cup in South Africa last February.

Australia's greatest test wicket-taker said he was given the drug innocently by his mother and took it to reduce his double chin and make him look better on television.

Ponting says his sympathy for his friend and teammate was mixed with "a feeling of annoyance".

Ponting was also "pretty angry" that the controversy came to a head on the eve of Australia's ultimately successful campaign in South Africa earlier this year.

Bureau Report