By Paul Fletcher

Ishant Sharma's gesture was deemed "aggressive" by the ICC

India have written a letter to match referee Jeff Crowe complaining about the behaviour of the Australians.

It comes after the latest incident of a heated Test and one-day series saw Indian Ishant Sharma fined after being found guilty of aggressive behaviour.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Niranjan Shah confirmed a letter had been written in the wake of Sunday's one-day match.

And he said: "Basically the Australian players are starting the whole thing."

Indian paceman Sharma pointed towards the dressing-rooms after dismissing Andrew Symonds during the match.

And Shah added: "I do not want our players to get into these type of things.

Everybody has recognised that this type of behaviour is not wanted BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah

"The whole thing is started by the Australian players."

India paceman Sharma was fined 15% of his match fee for an "aggressive gesture" to Symonds in Sunday's match against Australia.

But match referee Crowe said: "Sharma may have been provoked and this was his first offence - hence the penalty was at the lower end of the scale."

India captain Mahendra Dhoni said that Sharma, 19, had been provoked by Symonds.

"He only reacted to what Symonds said to him," said Dhoni.

"If you're getting provoked then there are ways in which you can reply so you have to be careful about it.

"We have youngsters in the side who will learn all these arts."

India defeated Sri Lanka on Tuesday to seal their place in the best of three one-day CB Series final against Australia.

The matches will bring to a close a controversial tour of Australia by the Indian team.

The Test series was marred by controversy after spinner Harbhajan Singh was charged for allegedly racially abusing Symonds.

The off-spinner was later cleared of racial abuse but charged with using abusive language.

The BCCI proposed a complete ban last week on the use of offensive and abusive language at a meeting of the International Cricket Council's chief executive's committee.

606: DEBATE Is this Aussie-India series reflecting badly on the game?

The ICC subsequently agreed to adopt a zero-tolerance approach - and Shah added: "As we put to the ICC, there should not be any abusive language or sledging.

"I hope the ICC will start some process to stop this before it gets out of hand, through the ICC giving more power to the umpires on the field.

"I had a chat with Australia Cricket Board chief executive John Sutherland recently and we are both concerned with it.