Bermuda’s cricketers could soon find themselves sent off or forced to miss a significant portion of a game if they misbehave during a match.

A trial in Britain this summer will result in the introduction of red and yellow cards for the worst offences, while lesser infractions, such as dissent, time-wasting, and excessive appealing, will bring an immediate five-run penalty.

Red cards will be issued in the event that a player threatens an umpire, player, spectator or official, uses foul or abusive language, or commits an act of violence on the field of play.

As in football, a red card would remove the player for the rest of the match, with no possibility of them being replaced.

A yellow card will be tied to level-three offences, namely intimidation of an umpire or player, the use foul or abusive language, or deliberately bowling a high full-pitched ball.

A yellow card will result in a player being removed for ten overs if his side is fielding; if a batsman commits an offence, he is retired out until the fall of the next wicket. If he is the last man, the team will be deemed all out.

Each sending-off or yellow-card offence would also result in a five-run penalty.

Bowlers who throw the ball back at opposition batsmen could also come under the scope of the new rules, with umpires encouraged to immediately award a five-run penalty to the batting side.

The trial is being introduced by the MCC in an attempt to arrest declining standards of player behaviour, with five games in Britain abandoned last year because of violent conduct.

Leagues, schools and MCC Universities in Britain are being invited to take part in the trials, with a variety of different suggested sanctions available for umpires to use.

The MCC has used the ECB’s Code of Conduct levels one to four as a guide to what behaviour constitutes what level of breach, with some minor alterations, but is also encouraging flexibility to gain a broad range of feedback.

The trials are part of a thorough review of the Laws of Cricket being undertaken by the club with a view to publishing a new Code of the Laws, the first since 2000, in October 2017.

After a global consultation last year, the majority of umpires felt they would be better empowered to deal with poor on-field behaviour if they had more power to tackle the problem during the match, rather than through a retrospective reporting procedure.

A green paper produced as a result by the MCC and soon to be distributed to leagues, umpire associations, schools and universities states: “There is clear evidence, both anecdotally and through increased reports via leagues, that the standards of player behaviour on the cricket field are declining worldwide.

“While the majority of cricket is played in a competitive but fair spirit, there are some players, or even teams, whose behaviour is below what is expected for cricket.

“Indeed, five matches in the UK had to be abandoned last year, after outbreaks of violence.”

Some trials have already taken place in New Zealand, with a yellow-card and red-card system being employed.

According to the MCC, the evidence from that trial points to the deterrent of on-field sanctions resulting in a “significantly reduced number of reports of code violations for behaviour” across the country.