March 28, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1429

MUMBAI, March 27: India’s cricket board hopes to keep offensive language and rude gestures out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) by having the eight team captains take a pledge to abide by the “spirit of cricket”.

The BCCI, which is also campaigning for a ban on sledging, hopes to avoid the same kind of unsavoury incidents that marred their tour of Australia.

“We (India) are the first to adopt the spirit of cricket,” IPL governing council member Inderjit Bindra told Thursday’s Hindustan Times. “And to ensure players abide by it, the captains of all eight teams in the IPL will take a pledge to play by the spirit of the game before the tournament gets rolling.”

A preamble on the spirit of cricket was formally added to the laws of the game at the turn of the century on how it should be played and viewed both on and off the field.

However, following India’s acrimonious tour of Australia, the ICC announced this week a “zero-tolerance” crackdown on offensive language and gestures in the sport as part of its drive to eradicate “sledging”.

During the tour, India’s Harbhajan Singh was accused of racially abusing Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds, while Matthew Hayden was reprimanded for calling the Indian spinner an “obnoxious weed”.—Reuters