Australia’s players are being allowed to get away with less this season, with two more international stars finding themselves in hot water for their behaviour.

A week after Marnus Labuschagne fell foul of match officials, two members of Australia’s all-conquering women’s team, Ash Gardner and Nicola Carey, have been fined for indiscretions in the WBBL.

Cricket Australia insists there is no crackdown over player behaviour, but at the very least there appears to be a more stringent application of the code of conduct in 2021-22 after a series of incidents in the back half of the last domestic season involving Tim Paine, Steve Smith and Labuschagne.

The trio – respectively the Test captain, a former captain and a man touted as a potential future captain – all came perilously close to being sanctioned for dissent.

The incidents involving Labuschagne and Smith have been highlighted among umpires and match referees as examples of cases that should have been cited but were not. Officials are now acting against behaviour which transgresses the code.

In Labuschagne’s case, he threw his head back and shook his head in disagreement after being given out for the second time in the game to what appeared a line-ball verdict.

Smith, too, struggled to conceal his disappointment in a game between NSW and Victoria, shaking his head several times and brushing his trousers with his glove seemingly to show the ball had hit his thigh instead of his bat after a caught behind decision.

The incidents involving Paine and Labuschagne occurred in a game between Tasmania and Queensland in which players from both sides were unhappy with the umpiring. CA later issued a statement calling on players to show respect to umpires.