Beamers must be punished with ban

In the Sunday Telegraph, Mike Atherton says that one name should be missing from the scorecard at The Oval on Thursday - India's Sreesanth. Atherton strongly feels the International Cricket Council needs to send out the message that the beamer has no place in cricket.

Mirroring the ICC's misguided sense of priorities, there was little comment in the media about Sreesanth's 'delivery'. This is partly because only one man, Sreesanth himself, knows whether it was deliberate, partly because a coterie of former bowlers in the press box (Mike Selvey an exception) are inclined to take the charitable view that it was not, and partly because there was so much more, other than the cricket, to talk about. But I have no doubt that Sreesanth's rancorous spell, which included the beamer and the no-ball, was the most glaring example in the match of something that ran completely counter to the spirit of the game. Forget the jellybeans and inane chatter.

England will be under scrutiny in the third Test this week, particularly their openers, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times. The heat has been turned up under Michael Vaughan, whose reputation as one of the most tenacious leaders England have had will be put to the test.

England have yet to lose a series at home under Vaughan, but with a resurgent India taking the honours at Trent Bridge, it is Vaughan's leadership, not batting, that most of the focus has turned to.

Rather surprisingly, though, his judgment has not always passed muster. He has twice been obliged to make public apologies, first for erroneously claiming to have been misquoted in a newspaper interview in regard to the Andrew Flintoff "Pedalo” affair at the World Cup, and then to Zaheer Khan for his team leaving sweets on the pitch when the Indian came out to bat at Trent Bridge last week during a match marred by graceless behaviour from both sides.

The England team received flak from the Independent for their on-field demeanour.

The likes of Sidebottom, Anderson and Prior must stamp out the boorish behaviour which is unsavoury and hard to take seriously