New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has been fined 40% of his match fee after being found guilty of misconduct during his team's two wicket VB Series loss to Australia in Melbourne yesterday.

The punishment was applied in relation to an incident which occurred while Fleming was batting during the afternoon session of the day-night match between the teams.

Fleming was charged, under clause C3 of the International Cricket Council's Code of Conduct, with dissent by match referee Hanumant Singh late yesterday evening. It followed his response to the decision of umpires Darrell Hair and Simon Taufel not to originally no-ball the home team after it had breached one-day international playing conditions with a field setting during the 15th over of the match.

Fleming, who went on to score 50 in New Zealand's total of 8/245, was on strike to leg spinner Shane Warne at the time of his misdemeanour. After playing a delivery to long on, the 28-year-old gesticulated angrily with his bat and his right hand at each of the three fieldsmen that Australia had positioned on various points of the ground's boundaries in contravention of international regulations.

Hair responded by making a no-ball signal to the scorers but Singh took a dim view of Fleming's actions and ultimately elected to withhold 40% of the player's match payments.

In a short statement, Singh confirmed that he had taken Fleming's previously unblemished record into account in deciding upon the penalty.

It is the fourth time that an international player has answered a misconduct charge in Australia this summer.

Pace bowler Brett Lee was docked 75% of his match fee during the Third Test against New Zealand in Perth after being found guilty of using crude and abusive language and offensive gestures, and bringing the game into disrepute.

Australian captain Steve Waugh received a fine of 50% of his match fee in late December when he lingered at the crease after he had been ruled to have been run out during the Second Test against South Africa in Melbourne.

Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath then became the first player to be charged during the current one-day program. He incurred a one-match suspension and two-match suspended sentence after being found to have shown dissent as a caught behind appeal was upheld against him in the series' opening match in Melbourne earlier this month.

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