The most rugged, hardened, uncompromising, in-your-face cricket team in the world has vowed to improve its image by respecting the umpire's decision on the Ashes tour.

If one criticism can be made of Australia's world champion Test and one-day sides, it's that every now and again a player starts carrying on like a pork chop.

Glenn McGrath, Michael Slater and Shane Warne have been guilty in the past and the most recent example, when Slater harangued the umpire and Rahul Dravid in India when his appeal for a catch was rejected, attracted widespread criticism and took a layer of gloss from the Test team's 16-match winning streak.

Captain Steve Waugh and his players have decided they want nothing to detract from their achievements and a series of meetings has led to a pledge of good behaviour for the three-month trek around England.

No dissent, no telling a batsman to walk when they think he should, no bowlers snatching their hats from the umpire, no detonations of any kind - it could be easier said than done.

"We have made a conscious effort this series to accept every decision," said Waugh ahead of the one-day match against England at Old Trafford, which starts at 11.30pm (AEST). "Whether that's being realistic or not, I'm not sure until it actually happens."

Captain Waqar Younis led a charge of his players at umpire Ken Palmer at the death of the Pakistan versus England match yesterday when a ball that hit the batsman's wrist was called a wide.

Palmer definitely made the wrong call but the Pakistanis did themselves no credit by protesting for 30 or so seconds.

Waugh, hopeful rather than entirely confident his players would turn the other cheek if a similar situation arose, admitted the new mantra stemmed directly from the Slater incident.

"It stems from that and probably some feedback we've had via a few letters, and the cricket board, and a few people," he said.

"We want to be remembered as a really good cricket side and not for the wrong reasons and we've talked about that and that's important to us.

"You can probably judge us at the end of this tour and see whether we have improved in that regard."

There are those who believe Waugh should have intervened and stopped Slater's rant before it went out of control, but the Australian skipper said his players had to take responsibility for their own actions.

"I did my best," said Waugh, whose side has also been accused of over-zealous sledging in the past.

"I yelled out to Michael Slater - he wasn't close to me at that time - but I wasn't going to step in and pull him away because I think that would have inflamed the situation and wouldn't have done anyone really any good.

"It would have made me look good to you guys but that's not everything.

"As a captain you're in charge of the guys but you can't hold their hand every minute, you can't control their every emotion.

"If they step out of line they've got to pay the price in the same way I have to."

Waugh said the issue of no-ball dismissals had been "blown a little bit out of proportion" after a spate of umpiring errors in the last month.

England's collapse on the final day of the second Test against Pakistan included four lost wickets from deliveries that were shown by replay to be no-balls, while Shoaib Akhtar clearly transgressed when he bowled Adam Gilchrist at Cardiff.

"It's a difficult one," said Waugh. "It's probably always been happening but there's obviously more focus now when it happens.

"I think as a batter, if the bowler is fractionally over or close to the line it doesn't particularly worry me but I guess if they're a long way over then it's a bit of a concern.

"If the guy's bowling spin, I don't really think it would effect the dismissal.

"Technically it's a no-ball but lets face it, it's not going to effect how the batsman sees the ball."

AAP