IPL team captains to take 'no-sledge' pledge

RAW IS WAR: SRK (L), captain Saurav Ganguly (C) and actress Juhi Chawla at the unveiling ceremony of Kolkata Knight Riders.

Other stories in the section:

BCCI likely to scrap T20 Champions League

According to an English newspaper, the tournament has run into rough weather.

• Chief selector Vengsarkar all set to join IPL
• Indians or foreigners, IPL players have to pay tax

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

Bhiwani to Beijing: Lessons from a journey

Featured Slideshows

Related Headlines

powered by

• BCCI likely to scrap T20 Champions League
• Chief selector Vengsarkar all set to join IPL
• Indians or foreigners, IPL players have to pay tax

Keywords: Bcci, Indian Premier League

Mumbai: India's cricket board hopes to keep offensive language and rude gestures out of the Indian Premier League 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".

The ICC said while verbal exchanges could not be eliminated entirely, so umpires had to decide what they felt were acceptable levels.

The IPL Twenty20 tournament begins on April 18.