Vaughan urges England to play fair

The England captain has been at the centre of a storm created by the antics of both sides during the bad-tempered second Test at Trent Bridge, which India won by seven wickets to set up this week's series decider at the Oval.

"I've looked back on the last game and I do think there are a couple of areas where we got close to stepping over the line," admitted Vaughan, who is expected to lead out an unchanged team after Kevin Pietersen recovered successfully from an overnight virus.

India seamer Shanthakumaran Sreesanth was fined half his match fee for barging into Vaughan while he also bowled a beamer at Kevin Pietersen and ran through the crease and delivered a no-ball around the wicket to Paul Collingwood.

England were also guilty of sharp practice with constant sledging of India's batsmen and placing jelly beans on the wicket to try and unsettle Zaheer Khan while he batted, a stunt which backfired badly with the left-arm seamer claiming the man-of-the-match award with a nine-wicket haul.

But as the stakes are raised as England defend a proud unbeaten home Test series record stretching back to 2001 and India attempt to claim their first series victory on English soil since 1986, Vaughan has acted to try and dampen down the furore by improving England's behaviour.

He continued: "Our position as international cricketers is to make sure we don't step over the line. We still want to play it in an intense and hard fashion but for one thing I don't want to see swearing on the pitch, but I still want to see bowlers doing a bit of gamesmanship and people chirping because I don't think that's an issue.

"If if gets to swearing and an attack on a player then I think that's wrong. The two games have been played very well apart from one or two little incidents.

"There have been two games which have been really good to play in, you've known you've been in a Test match and that's what we want to see. We just don't want to see the guys going close to that line."