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A SEVEN-POINT preamble defining the spirit of the game will precede the new code of cricket laws when it is published next year. Stressing that any action which abuses the spirit causes injury to the game itself, the preamble begins by reiterating the responsibility of captains for ``ensuring the spirit of fair play''.

Entitled The Spirit of Cricket it will not itself be one of the laws but it will have the force of law. The second of the seven points implicitly urges both captains and umpires to intervene in cases of fair and unfair play and, in what might be seen as a stern admonition to Arjuna Ranatunga, Alec Stewart and Shane Warne after incidents in the current one-day series in Australia, all who play cricket are reminded that the spirit involves respect for opponents, captains, team-mates, umpires and ``the game's traditional values''. Point six states unequivocally that there is no place for any act of violence on the field of play.

Despite the specific provisions of law 42 on fair and unfair play, the preamble also forbids:

1) disputing an umpire's decision by word, action or gesture; 2) directing abusive language towards an opponent or umpire; 3) indulging in cheating or sharp practice, for instance: a) appealing knowing the batsman is not out; b) directing abusive language towards an opponent or umpire and; c) seeking to distract an opponent either verbally or by harassment with persistent clapping or unnecessary noise under the guise of enthusiasm or motivation of one's own side.

An MCC working party chaired by Lord Griffiths of Govilon, the former Cambridge and Glamorgan fast bowler and MCC president, is currently engaged in rewriting the laws, with the assistance of a parallel committee comprised of at least one representative from all the Test nations. When Bobby Simpson, the former Australian captain and coach, saw the draft of the proposed preamble he asked Lord Griffiths if it would actually be part of the laws. The reply was that it would have the same effect as the preamble to any Statute of English law. In the words of the committee's secretary, John Jameson: ``If anything in the laws refers back to the preamble, the preamble becomes the law.''

The initiative came from Lord Cowdrey, chairman of the MCC cricket committee who are overseeing the new code. It is due to be ratified in May 2000, after worldwide consultation.

No startling changes in the laws themselves are expected although the one about the ball being lost - the seldom invoked law 20 which gives batsmen the right to run more than six before ``lost ball'' is called - is bound to be updated. Reporting on progress yesterday, Jameson said: ``The working party have redrafted everything now except law 42, the most contentious. We are trying to strengthen it in respect of short-pitched bowling and beamers, but we are doing this really for 98 per cent of cricketers who do not play as professionals.''

Throughout England's tour of Australia there has been a clear policy for the players of one side to answer any unwanted invective from members of the opposition. Don't get pushed around has been the plan: render to every Australian eyeball for eyeball; angry word for angry word.

Glenn McGrath and, since his return after Christmas, Shane Warne have been the main dealers in gratuitous advice to batsmen, in the former's case often crudely phrased. He was first warned and eventually given a fine and a suspended sentence by the referee, John Reid, after the fourth Test in Melbourne.

McGrath and Warne were both involved in public conversations, respectively with Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain, during the first of the one-day finals in Sydney this week but in both cases it was the Australians who seemed to come out of the argument the better. They came out of both confrontations with a smile; their English rivals with a scowl. The result? McGrath got Stewart out and Warne got Hussain out. The result of the match? Australia won.

If there is a moral there, it is one which the proposed preamble to the laws will in future spell out more clearly. This laudable attempt by MCC to put a stop to the deterioration in standards of behaviour is unlikely to put the clock back to a time when hostility on the cricket fields was less open and also less exposed to the public gaze; but it will remind the players who set the standards, the professionals and especially the captains, of their responsibility for the game's hitherto undefined spirit.