Players behaving like louts on the field of play is, I am afraid, nothing new. But viewed alongside any of the many unfortunate incidents that have blotted the once noble image of cricket - particularly in the last 25 years - Michael Slater's absolutely scandalous outburst at the Wankhede stadium on Thursday constituted a new low in the history of growing misbehaviour in the game.

Questioning an umpire's decision is bad enough. But now unfortunately the stage has arrived when a player is at loggerheads with a decision taken by the third umpire, who has the benefit of innumerable slow motion replays from various angles. Is he a better judge or the player who thinks he has completed a `catch' on the spur of the moment? What next, one wonders.

Over the past two decades we have had many unhappy episodes that have sullied the image of the game. Can anyone ever forget the sight of Michael Holding kicking the stumps when an appeal was turned down by the umpire? In the same series, Colin Croft barged into umpire Goodall after he had negatived an appeal. A year later came Sunil Gavaskar's infamous walk out incident at Melbourne after an altercation with Dennis Lillee. The fiery Australian fast bowler, already infamous for the aluminum bat incident in 1979, was embroiled in another unsavoury controversy involving Javed Miandad two years later. The sight of umpire Tony Crafter separating the two `warriors' - the one with clenched fists and the other aiming to club Lillee with his bat - was the kind of photograph that brought tears to the eyes of the genuine cricket fan, who all along thought that the adage `it's not cricket' stood for anything unfair and unsporting.

As if all this was not enough, worse was to follow over the next decade. The questioning of umpires' decision became more open, the star players behaved like they were prima donnas and the clashes between the batsmen and the fielders became more and more disreputable. And in 1987-88 the image of the game touched a new low, first with the incident involving Chris Broad who refused to leave the crease after being given out caught behind by the umpire. Then of course in the next Test followed the infamous row between Mike Gatting and Shakoor Rana. Graham Morris' famous photograph of Rana and Gatting squaring up to each other was somehow symbolic of the growing malaise that had engulfed the game. By the 90s the phrase `cricket is a gentleman's game' evoked only derisive laughter. That phrase belonged to an earlier era when fieldsmen applauded a batsman who reached his century, when a batsman said `well bowled' to a bowler who had dismissed him and when fast bowlers refrained from bowling bouncers at tailenders.

All these noble qualities associated with the game had more or less disappeared by the time of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. But there is little doubt that the behaviour of the players became more boorish as a result of their direct involvement in WSC. Today, much that is attractive or innovative about the game - night cricket, coloured clothing, stump vision camera, white balls, black sight screen et al - can be traced to WSC. Unfortunately bad behaviour can also be traced to this two year turbulent period. With the tantrums becoming increasingly unendurable and with the image of the game suffering as a result, the International Cricket Council had to take urgent steps to curb the cancerous growth and so in the early 90s, innovations like the TV umpire (to help solve dissatisfaction with umpiring decisions), neutral officials (to quell charges of biased umpiring) and the match referee (to take action against erring players) were introduced.

It was reasonably hoped that these steps would act as a deterrent to the players. But based on the experiences of the last decade, it can safely be stated that these innovations have not had the desired effect. The failure of neutral officials is best illustrated by South African Cricket Board chief Ali Bacher's allegation against Pakistan umpire Javed Akhtar for giving eight lbw decisions in the decisive Test against England in 1998. Also, it must not be forgotten that only one of the two officials is from a neutral country and so the charge of bias can still be raised. As regards decisions taken by match referees, it must be said that these sometimes have raised more than the proverbial eyebrow. The officials have not been consistent despite the benefit of certain yardsticks. Frankly, too much is left to their interpretations, leading to charges of incompetency and bias. For example, Cammie Smith's decision just to warn Slater for his tantrums when a sterner penalty would have been in order was almost as shocking as the incident itself. One thought at least the third umpire's decisions would be above board - until Slater showed with his absolutely unacceptable behaviour on Thursday that even this could be questioned.

The point to note here is that some of the punishments meted out to the erring players is just not enough. A suspended sentence of two matches, a one match suspension, a monetary fine - all this obviously has no effect on the stars who having served out the punishment or paid the money promptly return to their ill mannered ways. Perhaps the time has come for harsher punishment to be meted out to these prima donnas. They must learn that the game is bigger than the individual. Much has been said about the damage to the game as a fallout of the match fixing scandal. One wonders how much the game has already suffered before April 7, 2000 by the loutish exhibition of players parading themselves as successors to gentlemen cricketers like Jack Hobbs, Frank Worrell and Gundappa Viswanath.

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