The International Cricket Council has decided to review the process of tackling players with illegal bowling action in a bid to simplify the entire procedure.

The decision, taken on the first day of the week-long meetings of the ICC, is aimed at reducing the procedure to a one-stage process. It is now recommended that the reported player will be directly dealt with by the ICC's Bowling Review Group.

Earlier, the bowler was first reported to the home board for remedial measures and only if that proved unsuccessful did the ICC step in.

The meeting of the ICC's Cricket Committee Management also decided to continue with the concept of neutral umpires and rejected suggestions of "moving away from appointing them to a situation where appointments from the Elite Panel could be made irrespective of their nationality", a statement from the ICC said.

The Cricket Committee also took up the issue of illegal bats, stating that a player found guilty of using such a bat would be charged with a Level 2 breach of ICC's Code of Conduct. The fine for such a breach could be the entire match fee and a one-Test or two one-day international ban.

It also prescribed penalties for the manufacturers which included deleting their name from the approved list.

The ICC meeting took the decisions on the recommendations it received from the Cricket Committee - Playing (CC-P) which deals with on-field matters.

The CC-P is chaired by former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar and includes Zaheer Abbas, Tim May, Angus Fraser and Errol Stewart.

The meeting, chaired by ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed, also received a briefing on the status of the Global Cricket Corporation's compensation claim against the ICC regarding the World Cup in South Africa.

The issue will now be raised for further discussion at the meeting of the Board of the ICC's commercial arm -- ICC Development (International) Limited -- which will be held in Monaco on Friday.

The ICC management also initiated a discussion on the volume of cricket being played at present and the structure of the international game. The discussion will continue at the Executive Board Meeting on Thursday.