Agency report

London, Aug 9: Captain Michael Vaughan warned his England team on Wednesday to refrain from swearing at their India opponents in the third and final Test starting at The Oval on Thursday.

England, who have not lost a home series since 2001, trail 1-0 after losing a bad-tempered second Test at Trent Bridge.

"I've looked back at the last game and I do think there were a couple of areas where we got close to stepping over the line," Vaughan told reporters. "Our position as international cricketers is to make sure we don't step over the line. (But) we still want to play in an intense and hard fashion.

"I don't want to see swearing on the pitch. I still want to see bowlers doing a little bit of gamesmanship, and chirping. But swearing, and an attack on a player, I think that's wrong.

"The (last) two games have been played very well apart from one or two little incidents. You've known you've been in a Test match and that's what we want to see.

"I just don't want to see swearing on the pitch. None of us wants to see that. Swearing is a natural reaction but you don't want to see it at a bowler or back at a batsman."

Vaughan, who has never lost a home series as a player or captain, said England would probably field an unchanged team barring late injuries after Kevin Pietersen recovered from a virus infection.

He said he was excited at the pressure on his side rather than fearful of losing a proud record.

"These kinds of games are great because you see which players stand up to the pressure and you learn a lot about your team in a week like this.

"Getting runs on the board is very important, putting teams under pressure, and if we can do that I think we've got enough in our attack to force a result this week."

With the experienced bowling trio of Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard returning to action with their counties this week after injuries, Vaughan is equally excited at the depth of pace bowlers that will soon be available to him.

"If we win this week and they bowl us to a great victory we will all be celebrating because it will make selection for the winter tours very difficult and that's exactly what we want," he said.