Bermuda’s World Cup-bound cricketers will be subjected to perhaps the most fiercely enforced Code of Conduct ever imposed on a national team over the next month.

All 15 members of the squad were last week required to sign a supplemental conduct agreement with Bermuda Cricket Board which gives the team’s management committee sweeping powers to enforce match bans and large fines if there is deemed to be a breach of the heavily beefed-up Code.

While a press release sent out yesterday by the Board did not provide any specifics, The Royal Gazette can reveal the following:

[bul] A curfew of 11 p.m. the night before a game and midnight for all other days is set to be strictly enforced.

[bul] Any player who breaks the curfew will automatically be banned for two One-Day Internationals and receive a hefty fine of $1,000.

[bul] Any player who breaks the curfew for a second time will be sent home immediately.

[bul] Any player not found in the hotel room to which they have been assigned by the team manager will be fined $1,000.

[bul] Any player who misses a training session without the coach’s express permission will be fined $200, while a second missed session will result in a $500 fine and a one-match ban.

[bul] Late attendance at any training session will be punished by a $50 fine for each offence

On previous tours, the players were subjected to a Code of Conduct, but it is understood that any disciplinary issues were usually only dealt with after the team had returned to the Island.

On-the-spot fines of up to $1,000 are certainly unprecedented, but Board president Reggie Pearman insisted yesterday that they had both a duty and a right to insist on the highest standards of behaviour.

“The players are in the final stages of preparing for the world’s third largest sporting event,” he said.

“At this event, and during the lead-up to it, the media attention will be unlike anything our squad will have experienced and it is critical for the individual, the squad and the country that player standards are beyond reproach.

“Michael Holding drew the attention of the banquet guests to it, Minsters (Dale) Butler and (Randy) Horton have met personally with the squad, Board executives and management continue to reinforce it. But I believe that Deputy Premier Paula Cox coined the importance of it most poetically when she implored our squad to use ‘the gold standard’.

“I have every confidence that our squad will not only fulfil their commitment to give 200 percent on the field but will show the world that Bermuda respects the history and the spirit of the game in off-field behaviour and sportsmanship.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to once again urge the public to give our team the greatest support that befits a team from the smallest nation ever to compete at the cricket World Cup.”