Bermuda Cricket Umpires Association president Lester Harnett has backed cricket chief Reginald Pearman's call for local players to stick to the code of conduct which the International Cricket Council are attempting to enforce worldwide.

Bermuda Cricket Board of Control's disciplinary committee have come under fire recently - mostly in private from players and club officials for the severity of the sentence handed out to St. George's wicketkeeper/batsman Sinclair Gibbons last week.

The east end player received a one-year ban following a skirmish with St. David's opening bat Phillip Pitcher during a game at Wellington Oval on May 26. Pitcher received only a two-game suspension.

Harnett, however, has no qualms over the Board's handling of disciplinary matters.

"I feel good about the way things are going in this regard," he said. "We must remember that the Board has criteria to follow and likewise the BCUA has them to follow. Sometimes the report of the umpires might not be explicit enough for the Board and the whole disciplinary process gets drawn out because the committee doesn't understand a point.

"But in general I don't have a problem over disciplinary situations," he said.

Like BCBC president Pearman, Harnett stressed the importance of players being more considerate on the field of play and urged them to act in an orderly fashion.

However, he believed Bermuda players were a long way behind their counterparts in other countries when it came to sportsmanship, and often only had themselves to blame for being charged with bringing the game into disrepute.

"Bermuda is one of the only regions in the world today where players do not accept the decisions of umpires without making a fuss. I feel that they bring the game into disrepute and could avoid doing so by not overreacting,'' said Harnett.

But he said the Board deserved credit for handling disciplinary matters the way they did.

"I wouldn't agree that action has not been taken over the years by the Board against players. I would not say they have not done their duty. They have acted appropriately in many cases when I have made reports and they have dealt with them in a timely fashion.

"However, I am speaking for myself only as there probably are other umpires who may feel differently. I think at times we might have one or two members at the Board level who favour a player and something may not have been followed up and I don't know whether the justified or warranted action was taken. But generally things have been okay."

Bermuda's top umpire said problems often occurred when reports by officials on incidents were not sufficiently explanatory and he encouraged all umpires to prepare their documents with as much care as possible.

But he said it was more important that players strove to be more considerate on the field of play and not overreact when an umpire's ruling didn't go in their favour.

"My wish is that players would adhere to the code of conduct much more than they do these days because I think that maybe Bermuda is one of the only regions around the world where players do not accept decisions without overreacting.

"The bottom line is that if players accept decisions and play the game in the true spirit of how it should be played then we would have far less reason for disciplinary action to be considered in the first place," said Harnett.