‘Sledging crackdown may lead to misinterpretations’

Clark also feels that restriction on on-field expressions will render the game dull and boring.

“It (sledging) has been part of the game for so long now.

How are we going to remove something that has been so much part of the game.

“Put it this way. It’s going to be very boring for six hours if you can’t talk to one another and can’t do anything like that,” Clark told Australian Associated Press.

“What is a sledge and what’s not a sledge is my big question there,” he added.

The ICC recently sent a note to captains of all international teams and all Full Members asking them to curb sledging by learning from India’s recent ill-tempered tour of Australia.

Clark believes sledging is here to stay but favours eliminating the racist and political “stuff” from the game.

“The racial and the political and all that sort of stuff needs to be removed from the game and I’m totally for that.

I can’t say what they are thinking (with the new rules), but removing sledging completely from cricket will be detrimental to the game,” he said.