The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are to request a total ban on sledging. Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary, confirmed the board are to raise the issue at next week's ICC chief executive committee meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

"Sledging is not required in cricket," Shah said. "It's not good for the game. Cricket is a gentleman's game, not a contact sport. We don't see why there should be any abusive language at all."

Player behaviour has been in the spotlight in the wake of last month's second Test between Australia and India in Sydney. Harbhajan Singh, the India spinner, was initially found guilty of racially abusing Australia's Andrew Symonds, but later cleared.

The Australia players were convinced the spinner directed the word "monkey" at Symonds, but the Harbhajan himself contested he used a Hindi insult, "teri maa ki".

"What is not particularly bad in one country can be very offensive in another," Shah said. "It's better just to cut out everything that could remotely cause a problem. Our board is unanimous on this and I think the ICC will be receptive to our proposal."

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