Colombo (Sri Lanka) - As he showed at the World Cup Australia's captain Steve Waugh has a way of dealing with the sort of buffoon style questions which emerge from the media circus before or after a match.

And those attending the media briefing of the Aiwa Cup triangular tournament at the Taj Samudra last night copped the Aussie in a 'fair dinkum mood' when asking his thoughts of alleged acrimony between the lads from Oz and the Sri Lankans.

``I guess these stories have been going on and on . So we might as well knock that one on the head right now,'' was his forceful response. ``We have had no problems in the past with Sri Lanka players and they have not had any problems with us.

``Our policy has been to encourage our players to meet the others after a day's play or the match.

``There may have been one or two things said in the past. But you get that among any sides on the field. We'll continue to play it hard but as far as I am aware there are no problems between players once we're off the field,'' Waugh commented looking at the audience for a rebuttal.

It was the sort of answer which threw up the prosaic rejoinder by Sanath Jayasuriya, the new Sri Lanka captain, that he would encourage off-the- field friendliness and Sachin Tendulkar added similar thoughts on the question of fraternisation among players.

``I would rather refer to sledging as a form of gamesmanship,'' was Waugh's comment when pressed on the issue. ``Look, I think it is a matter of interpretation what word you want to use.

``Okay, so there are going to be one or two words said out there between the players. But that's why we have a match referee and two umpires to monitor the situation and make sure it doesn't get out of hand.

``There haven't been too many problems in the past. You obviously have a lot more (TV) cameras these days and when something is said it is going to be magnified and played ten times and made a lot more worse than it really is.'' In Waugh's view it was up to the players to control themselves and those who talked too much were not going to play well. He also criticised certain sections of the media for their general approach by concentrating on the negative aspects of the game than the positive. This emerged after being question of his views on the prickly issue of ``chucking'' and the International Cricket Council's revision of laws committee's decision over the weekend to tighten the wording on throwing.

``We have umpires and the referee to monitor what is happening. I'm here to play in a series and it's not my job to have or make an opinion on throwing,'' he said.

It was pretty obvious, once Ross Emerson had called Muthia Muralitharan at Adelaide Oval back in January there was going to be a general shake up in the law of what and what does not constitute a throw.

As has been noted by an ICC official during the World Cup, there are any number of bowlers who have suspect actions and it was known of several, including a prominent West Indian, who should have been called for throwing but had been allowed to escape the ``hangman''.