I fear the day is approaching when a high-profile, televised cricket match will see an outbreak of physical violence on the field - and nothing could be more injurious to all concerned. The amount of money coming into the game seems unending, but growth would be halted and reversed if leading cricketers were seen to be fighting; fewer parents would want their children to have anything to do with such a sport.

Since 1744, when the laws banned a localised practice of pushing fielders when they tried to catch the ball, cricket has been a non-contact sport. Preventing physical violence on the pitch - as more and more matches are played for more and more money - will require vision and leadership.

A flashpoint occurred in the Trent Bridge Test when Zaheer Khan was incensed by the jelly beans which had been placed in his batting crease by an England fielder, and he pointed his bat at Pietersen, whom he erroneously suspected of this breach of manners. Another flashpoint came at Sydney in the new year, when the Second Test between Australia and India was so filled with umpiring mistakes, player misbehaviour and hatred (most overtly between Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh) that the game stared briefly into the abyss. For a week or two - while India threatened to call off the tour if Harbhajan was not acquitted of racism, in a complete violation of the judicial process, and while the world's most experienced Test umpire Steve Bucknor was forced to stand down from the Perth Test and the authority of umpires was eroded - “Bollyline” was as serious as Bodyline.

Last year saw an alarming increase in the amount of physical contact between batsman and bowler. James Anderson was fined 50 per cent of his match fee for “inappropriate and deliberate physical contact” with Runako Morton in the Edgbaston international. Paul Hoffmann of Scotland barged into Canada's opening batsman Abdool Samad so forcefully that Samad needed four minutes of treatment on the field before continuing; Hoffmann, too, was fined 50 per cent.

The worst example came in the Kanpur international when Gautam Gambhir ran straight down the pitch and into Shahid Afridi. As the bowler, Afridi was allowed to stay where he was at the end of his follow-through; it was up to the batsman to swerve and avoid him. Gambhir looked to be the chief culprit and, even though it was his first offence, should have been penalised more harshly than Afridi, whatever his verbal provocations. As it was, Gambhir was fined 65 per cent, Afridi 95 per cent.

It is up to the ICC to police international cricket, as it appoints the umpires and referees, pays and trains them. Ably directed by the senior referee Ranjan Madugalle, it has taken a lot of the heat out of the game - Sydney being a reminder of how often accusations of racism used to be levelled before neutral umpires. It has also done well to stamp out the contemptible practice, pioneered by Australian fielders, of throwing the ball in at the striker instead of to the wicketkeeper. Now the ICC must be no less effective in preventing physical violence. For once this taboo is broken, it could rapidly spread, just as sledging - sustained personal abuse - has spread from international teams downwards.

To prevent batsman and bowler barging into each other, the likeliest casus belli, I suggest the ICC should experiment with trial games in which the groundsman cuts two extra strips, each one a couple of metres away from the match pitch. The non-striker has to run up and down his strip, like the lane of a motorway, and has the right of way there - ahead of bowler or fielder - but nowhere else. Perhaps the striker, to have right of way, has to run up and down the other strip. In any event, the rights of way should be defined more clearly than they are. Also, impeding a fielder's throw by deliberately getting in the way of the ball should be reassessed for what it is: obstructing the field, and therefore “out”.

National boards, as well as the ICC, should have reminded their captains of their responsibilities. Had boards possessed more feeling for the game, they would have done more to curb sledging. If by some remote chance an administrator or player has not done so, let him or her read Mary Russell Mitford's description of a cricket match in Our Village, in the chapter that begins: “I doubt if there be any scene in the world more animating or delightful than a cricket-match.”

Although published in 1832, it contains an eternal verity. To organise a cricket match is a creative act. You make a fixture; you play with the opposition as well as against them. We live in a world of chaos, and a cricket match is one of our attempts to impose human organisation upon nature, order upon chaos. It takes much to create and, when angry emotions take over, it is so easy to destroy.

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