Crowd behaviour in cricket

Welcome to our third discussion and debate on Wicket to Wicket. After deliberating Indian cricket and the use of technology in umpiring, we turn our attention to the thorny subject of crowd behaviour.

Much has been said and written about the racist tone to the crowd behaviour at Australian grounds recently. South Africa have made an official complaint; Sri Lanka are unhappy about the way Muttiah Muralitharan has been treated; and the ICC are holding an investigation into the allegations.

Though hooliganism has been a bane for football for years, it is a relatively recent phenomenon in cricket, and the comfort is that the authorities have been swift the grasp the danger it poses to the game.

A recent article by Peter English on the subject drew a torrent of feedback from Cricinfo readers, prompting us to open up the discussion to a wider audience. Peter gets the ball rolling, and he will be joined next week by Rahul Bhattacharya, Andrew Miller, Neil Manthorp and Vaneisa Baksh.

We would, of course, welcome your feedback on the issues being raised, and you can do so by leaving a comment below. While we appreciate the contentious nature of a topic such as behaviour and racism, any abusive or unnecessarily provocative messages will be removed. Over to you, Peter.