Men behaving better

In July's Wisden Cricket Monthly Julian Guyer reports that a fair-play league has club players biting their tongues

An innovative approach to the problem of players' bad behaviour is being pioneered in the Middlesex County League, one of England's leading club competitions.

The idea is a fair-play league and the winners in each of the three divisions will receive £500 from the sponsors Ladbrokes. Teams start matches with 30 fair-play points but may lose points if, in the opinion of the umpires, the players' conduct is not in keeping with the spirit of cricket, dissent is shown at decisions and there is bad behaviour towards the opposing team.

So will it make any difference? "We're in favour of anything that helps umpires," says the League chairman Bob Baxter. "I don't think we have a particular problem with discipline in Middlesex but we hope this may concentrate minds."

There is a general perception within club cricket that on-field behaviour has declined in recent years and tales of umpires staging Arthur Fagg-style walkouts during the middle of games in protest are not uncommon.

Richard Johns is the manager of Finchley, traditionally one of Middlesex's strongest clubs. "It will be interesting to see the umpires' markings when they come out," he says. "I think behaviour has got worse. A lot of it has to do with games being more competitive because of the introduction of leagues with promotion and relegation.

"There are fewer umpires than there used to be. How much of that is down to behavioural standards or a general lack of interest in umpiring I'm not sure. But I do know some umpires who have packed it in because they had had enough of being shouted at by players."

Ladbrokes have run similar schemes in local football competitions. "We are determined to put something back into sport because as bookmakers we make our money from it," says Dominic Harrison, Ladbrokes' commercial director. "We want to do something which upholds the best traditions of cricket at a time when, anecdotally at least, they appear to be under threat.

"We could throw money at large-scale events but we want our business to be regarded as local because what matters to our customers is what is happening in their area. "Middlesex are our home county (Ladbrokes' headquarters are in Harrow) but we've already had inquiries from Kent and Essex, who've heard on the grapevine about what's going on here. And what's been really encouraging is that clubs in Middlesex have been coming to us with their own sponsorship ideas."

At a time when English cricket nationally is on the lookout for major backers, is Ladbrokes involvement at club level the sign of bigger things to come? "I rule nothing out," Harrison says. "But this is the first time, as far as anyone still at the company can remember, that we've got involved with cricket and we're happy to be putting something back into the sport in this way."

If nothing else this season, when the fair-play tables are published, a few sides in Middlesex will no longer be able to say that "bad behaviour is a problem, but not at our club". Perhaps the ICC should adopt the idea of a fair-play table. It might just be the only thing in the game Australia would struggle to win.

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The July 2003 edition of Wisden Cricket Monthly is on sale at all good newsagents in the UK and Ireland, priced £3.40.