February 26, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 18, 1429

SYDNEY, Feb 25: India and Australia have been warned to improve their on-field behaviour after Ishant Sharma was fined over an ugly incident with Andrew Symonds.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) again called on both sides to bury their differences and focus on playing the game amid fears of another bitter fallout between the feuding teams.

“Clearly both teams are still sensitive to each others’ actions in the middle,” ICC match referee Jeff Crowe said in a statement.

“ICC has recently reiterated that a zero tolerance attitude will be shown to abusive or insulting language and actions.

“So hopefully the teams in these remaining matches in the (Tri-) Series will focus on the business of playing and entertaining.”

Sharma was fined 15 percent of his match fee from Sunday’s tri-series One-day International in Sydney after he celebrated Symonds’ dismissal by crudely pointing the batsmen to the dressing room during a heated exchange.

He was charged by the on-field umpires with a low level offence but Crowe said he wanted to remind both teams about their behaviour.

“The gesture was a direct breach of the ICC Code of Conduct,” Crowe said. “I took into account the fact that Sharma may have been provoked and that this was his first offence and hence the penalty was at the lower end of the scale.”

Sharma was the fourth Indian player charged with breaching the code of conduct during the team’s troubled tour of Australia.

Batsman Rohit Sharma was fined for dissent against Sri Lanka in Brisbane less than three weeks ago and Yuvraj Singh was charged, but later let off, with the same offence during the first Test in Melbourne in December.

The most serious incident occurred in the second Test in Sydney when spinner Harbhajan Singh was initially given a three-match ban for racially abusing Symonds.

The penalty was later changed to a fine after the charges were downgraded to a lesser offence on appeal after the row between the teams threatened to boil over.

The Indian cricket board took the unusual step of suspending the tour for two days and threatened to go home before the teams agreed to a truce.

Meanwhile, Australia have been fined for a slow over rate during the team’s win over India on Sunday, with captain Ricky Ponting losing a fifth of his fee and other players also hit in the pocket.

Australia won the match by 18 runs, but were later ruled by Crowe to be two overs short of their target after time allowances.

Ponting was fined 20 per cent of his match fee, while the rest of the team was fined 10 per cent.

“Prior to the match in Melbourne, I had talks with the Australia team management in which I had again reminded them of their responsibilities regarding over-rates,” Crowe said, conceding that it was a “close and high-scoring match.”

“In such circumstances, getting through their overs in the early stages would assist them to have enough time available to work with the bowlers and set fielding placing when the match enters the last 10 overs or crucial stages,” Crowe added.

—Agencies