Australian players warned about conduct

James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, is concerened about the increasing number of reports on Australian players for bad on-field behaviour over the last year. He has told Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain, that expectations of how they handle themselves on the field had risen.

The most recent offender was Ponting himself when he protested against umpire Asad Rauf's decision to call a wide during the DLF Cup in Kuala Lumpur. He has been found guilty of dissent twice by the ICC. Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath have also had to appear before the match referee for bad conduct in the recent past.

"I know it's something the players have talked about in recent times, even at the camp to address areas of concern, areas of susceptibility," Sutherland told the Herald Sun. "I am sure they are making conscious efforts to keep the slate clean and play the game in the right spirit."

"If you have a look at a case-by-case scenario, I think they have been relatively minor" added Sutherland. "I am not in any way condoning that behaviour, but they are level one. My strong feeling is that the bar has actually been raised a little bit by the ICC over the last 12 months, 18 months. Mentally we need to continue to keep up with that."