The anti-social behaviour plaguing domestic football is gradually seeping into local cricket.And unless drastic measures are taken to buck the trend Bermuda Cricket Umpires Association (BCUA) executive Richard Austin fears the situation will only get worse.Speaking in the wake of at least two separate incidents that marred the opening weekend of the 2012 domestic cricket season, Austin called upon all of cricket’s stakeholders to become proactive in combating anti-social behaviour.The First Division match at St John’s Field between Flatts and Western Stars was abandoned after a brawl broke out among opposing players. The Premier match at Sea Breeze Oval was also marred by a heated on-field confrontation between Southampton Rangers skipper Dion Stovell and Bailey’s Bay Ryan Steede who had to be separated.Austin said: “You have to know who your players are and we can’t sugarcoat it any more because we see what is happening in soccer where players can’t go to one ground and stuff like that and games have to be postponed and conceded because of that sort of stuff.“We are still a little bit fortunate here in cricket. But when we look at it the reality is that the clubs who play cricket are also the clubs that play soccer so let’s do something about it now because we have an opportunity and the clubs must be consistent and firm in dealing with who they have in their programme.”Austin suggested that the incident at St John’s Field last Sunday might have been avoided all together had recommendations that were made at Bermuda Cricket Board’s (BCB) 2011 season post-mortem been implemented.One of the proposals, he said, was for the implementation of match managers capable of either assisting BCUA members or filling the void whenever there are no umpires available at all, as was the case at St John’s Field.“The cricket board’s regulations doesn’t say in the absence of umpires the game can’t go on,” Austin said. “So they have to put something in place where there are no umpires that the game must go on and somebody can adjudicate in a fit and proper manner without being accused of being biased and stuff like that.“‘That’s where the match manager will especially come into play and yesterday would’ve been a classic example at St John’s Field. The match manager can also address issues whether it’s player behaviour, umpire officiating or stuff like that.“What is particularly worrying for us is that we had a good opportunity after incidents last year to effectively put some measures in place but we let it slip. I’m not tasking the cricket board themselves, but they had a good opportunity and somehow they didn’t grasp it.”Last season saw umpires take the drastic step of abandoning games if they felt the safety of players, fans and officials were at risk.Should the need arise, Austin said BCUA members won’t hesitate to take similar action again this season.“It’s not a policy decision that we will just up and say if X happens we will do Y,” he said. “The two umpires at a game will have to deal with the situation they see best and see fit.“But one thing for sure we are not going to be exposing our umpires to any stupid acts of violence from players, fans and anybody like that. And if need be if we have to take steps like we did last year our umpires are quite capable and prepared to do it (abandon games).“Clubs need to make sure they have officials there that can monitor and deal with any stupid behaviour whether it’s players or spectators because you must have a certain standard in place. Clubs seem to fail to realise that a lot of them are liquor license clubs and they have certain responsibilities under the liquor license act. Myself as a police officer and a lot of my colleagues who are also there can see this and we point these things out to them.”