London, July 15 (Inditop.com) Australian cricketers haven’t received the guidelines set by Cricket Australia (CA) to uphold the spirit of the game during the Ashes.
Last month, CA commissioned a survey among fans, who asked Ricky Ponting’s team not to sledge, swear, cheat and spit during the ongoing Ashes Test series. CA said that it will send the results of the survey to all contracted players and they have to follow the guidelines.
But with both the teams heading towards the second Test starting at Lord’s Thursday, Australian cricketers are yet to get any guidelines from their board.
Australian fast bowler Peter Siddle said that he had heard of the survey but was unaware of any such guidelines sent to the players for the series.
“I don’t know if they sent it, but it never arrived,” Siddle was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.
Australian players’ on-field behaviour came under heavy criticism during the Sydney Test against India in 2008 when Andrew Symonds alleged that he was racially abused by Harbahjan Singh. Ponting’s on-field behaviour also divided the Australian fans.
The survey found that the Australian side’s acceptability of their behaviour dropped to 8.17 from last year’s 8.47 out of 10.
The cricketers’ individual score on their behaviour was between 5.67 and 8.42 out of 10, way below some of the top Australian sportspersons like golfer Geoff Ogilvy (8.85) and swimmer Grant Hackett (8.91).
rounak