England jelly japes not worth a bean

England’s players may have found the scattering of jelly beans in Zaheer Khan’s crease amusing but not many others did, including Zaheer who responded in the best way (no, not by brandishing his bat at Kevin Pietersen, for once possibly the innocent party) but by taking five second-innings wickets. In The Daily Telegraph, Martin Johnson said the prank was “not worth a bean” and he didn’t have much time for all the verbals either.

With all this sledging going on, maybe a toboggan would be a more suitable England crest than three lions, but whenever they do locate a new fielding coach, let's hope he can come up with something a bit less juvenile than planting a jelly bean on the pitch. Now we know why batsmen do all that prodding. They're trying to flatten out all those sugary sweets.

It's schoolboy stuff, it really is. Tee hee, what a wizard jape. Jelly and blancmange will doubtless be on the menu at England's end-of-season dinner, and if England lose this match, Michael Vaughan's worried expression at the press conference will have less to do with the result than wondering whether someone might have planted a whoopee cushion on his chair.