SYDNEY, Dec 10 (AFP) - The Australian cricket establishment closed ranks around Shane Warne and Mark Waugh on Thursday but for the man in the street there was no question about how the disgraced pair should be treated.

Australian newspapers lambasted the pair for accepting 11,000 dollars (6,600 US) between them to tell an Indian bookmaker about the state of the pitch and the weather during a tour of Sri Lanka in 1994.

But they were even harder on the Australian Cricket Board which hushed up the affair for three years after fining the players in 1995.

The most cutting remarks were on the letters' pages.

"Mark Waugh and Shane Warne must stood down immediately for providing bookies with insider information," wrote Gary Reilly of Brisbane to the Australian.

"Naive and stupid definitely, but they left out greedy," wrote another fan.

"A new word, a new day: Hypocricket," was how another summed up the whole affair.

But the most damaging loss of faith came from one fan who said he would now be supporting the English tourists. "So long, Shane and Mark -- I'm off to join the Barmy Army," wrote the Queensland fan.

The Sydney Morning Herald called for a comprehensive inquiry.

"The statement made by the players yesterday is inadequate. It leaves open the issue of whether a fine is an adequate punishment for their disservice to Australian cricket," it said.

"It does not explain, for instance, why Waugh was paid more for his information than Warne."

The Daily Telegraph labeled the Australian Cricket Board's handling of the scandal "a national disgrace" for which it should be "eternally ashamed."

"... as abhorrent as is the behaviour of Waugh and Warne, it is the Australian Cricket Board which is deserving of the deepest condemnation," it said.

The Brisbane Courier-Mail said it was appalling that the ACB swept the whole affair under the carpet after fining Warne and Waugh.

"Yesterday, after the ACB was dragged to public admission of the scandal, the cricketing establishment treated the public with the contempt with which we have become familiar," it said.

The Melbourne Age advocated an inquiry by the International Cricket Council to ensure similar incidents have not been covered up.

"The game's good name is in jeopardy. And two of the most celebrated players in our national team have contributed to that sorry state, making this surely one of the most embarrassing and humiliating times in the long and proud history of Australian cricket," it said.

An intriguing answer to why a bookie should pay so much money for weather reports came from Alan Crompton, who was chairman of the ACB in 1995 and personally handled the inquiry into the two players.

"It's been suggested they were being set up to do other things at another time but it never got that far," he said.

"If there had been the slightest hint of anything else we would have handled the matter differently. We took action that was appropriate at the time," he added.

Warne and Waugh admitted Wednesday they had been "naive and stupid".

Crompton said the players were paid for a "very modest and harmless service, harmless as they saw it."

Crompton defended the Board's action in keeping the matter quiet.

"Senior players deserve protection, too," he said. "There could have been the risk of innuendo or suspicion or assumption they were involved in other levels when I was clearly satisfied they were not," he said.

Australian captain Mark Taylor said in Adelaide, where his team were preparing for the third Test against England starting Friday, that the matter should be forgotten.

He said the offending pair "took a fast buck".

"It was nothing more than that," Taylor said. "If it involved throwing matches or not giving 100 per cent day in and out, there would be a lot more to it."

However the controversy will clearly not go away. All Australia's media agonised over the country's loss of face on Thursday. One radio station started a poll asking listeners to say whether Warne, currently injured, should be allowed to play Test cricket again.