LONDON, Nov 16: Britain's sport minister Richard Caborn has urged the ICC to crack down on racial taunts from spectators after two members of England's cricket team complained they were inappropriately heckled during Ashes warmup matches.

“No part of sport can accept racism,'' said Caborn, who is in India leading a British sport business delegation.

“The sport's governing body has to get involved and take appropriate action,” he said.

English cricketers Monty Panesar, a bearded Sikh of Indian descent, and South Africa-born Kevin Pietersen claimed they were abused by spectators during warmup games in Australia.

The first Ashes test between Australia and England starts Nov. 23 at Brisbane.

“Authorities have to be at war on this,” Caborn told reporters. “I'm going to be talking to my counterpart in Australia, we've got a little difficulty down there.”

Caborn insisted the leadership in eradicating racism should come from within the sport, and cricket authorities could learn from soccer.

“It's an issue for the ICC to deal with, just like FIFA's done in football,” he said.

“In football we've been reasonably successful. We've tackled it in the United Kingdom through a big campaign that implores people to show a red card to racism.”

The ICC has an anti-racism code that was toughened earlier this year after South African and Sri Lankan cricketers complained that they were targeted by racist taunts during tours to Australia.

England's cricket team has not made an official complaint, but the England and Wales Cricket Board acknowledged that the incidents had occurred.

Australia's fans have been under scrutiny since the ICC investigated a complaint by South Africa cricket authorities and ruled that the racial abuse of cricketers was “premeditated, coordinated and calculated to get under the players' skins.”

Under a toughened ICC anti-racism code, adopted two months ago, spectators who abuse players risk life bans from matches, while stadiums risk losing their international status.

The anti-racism initiatives include the availability of a text message or telephone hot line at venues for fans to report offensive behavior.

Caborn said winning the anti-racism campaign would depend on “self-policing.”

“It's a matter of education ... dealing with it systematically and educating people at various levels,” Caborn said. “We had a problem in soccer, but took effective steps to take it out of the game.”

Along with the awareness program, Caborn said there were almost 3,000 exclusion orders preventing offending soccer fans from traveling to see matches. “And when they did travel, these persons had to report to the police,” Caborn said.—AP