Somerset fined, Trescothick handed suspended ban

Somerset have paid a heavy price for player indiscipline after an ECB disciplinary commission fined them fined £5,000, £1000 of which was suspended for 12 months, and handed captain Marcus Trescothick a two-match suspension, itself suspended for a period of 12 months. An "embarrassed and apologetic" club were also asked to pay £500 towards the cost of the hearing itself.

It could well have been worse for them, however, as in recent weeks both Sussex and Essex have suffered enforced player suspensions, with Murray Goodwin and James Foster the players found to have breached the disciplinary codes and subsequently banned.

A Cricket Discipline Commission Panel made up of Mike Smith, Alan Wadey and Peter Jewell convened to hear charges brought by the ECB against both the county, in respect of five separate occasions when cricketers registered with them were found guilty of fixed penalty offences in a 12-month period, and Marcus Trescothick, who was captain when all the offences took place.

The panel took into consideration both Somerset's own internal disciplinary procedures and the fact that Trescothick himself had not been directly involved in any of the offences, had an exemplary disciplinary record over a period of 19 years and had attempted to instil good discipline within his team.

The panel decided, however, that ultimately the number of separate incidents was unacceptable and that the regulations place a high responsibility on the captain in respect of the conduct of his players, a statement from them adding that Trescothick "had been let down by his team".

This most recent example of punishments handed out over player indiscipline comes in the week when the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA), the ECB umpires' manager and senior English umpires met in an attempt to quell the recent spate of poor behaviour in county cricket which had already led to two leading players - Goodwin and Foster - being suspended.