For the moment, responsibility rests squarely with two men: the coach or, to give him his official title, the England team director, Peter Moores and, even more certainly Michael Vaughan, the captain. The first paragraph in the long and detailed laws of cricket make it absolutely clear: "the major responsibility for ensuring the spirit of fair play rests with the captains." In many ways Vaughan is an outstanding leader, but England's occasionally graceless behaviour and their tendency towards excessive aggression predating both Moores and Vaughan himself in that the approach was the same under Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain has certainly not been discouraged during the five years of his captaincy.

The best reason for having a managing director, other than clearer accountability, is to have someone broad-minded enough to see the game as the world sees it, not only from within the inevitably confined bubble of the dressing-room. It was probably just a jolly jape that misfired, but it was not sufficient for Moores to say publicly that the jellybean incident "got a bit out of hand and I hope everyone will have learned from it". Internally no doubt, he has made the point much more forcibly but England should issue an immediate, genuine and unequivocal apology to Zaheer Khan for the behaviour of the fielder who scattered sweets near the crease, whether or not it was an attempt to distract the batsman.

There "jellygate" should and would end, although it is a rather depressing fact of life that all this controversy brings attention to the game. Switching on Radio 5 Live on the way to the Test on Monday it was not, for once, football that was under discussion but jellybeans. There is always a place for genuine humour in the game but none for calculated gamesmanship of any kind, which makes several other aspects of the Trent Bridge Test more serious.

There is the question, for example, of whether it is legitimate for players to suck sweets, as they have in professional cricket and the higher echelons of the club game for many years, with the ulterior motive of sugar-coating the ball with saliva to help to maintain its shine on one side.

The line between this means of encouraging swing and physical roughing up of one side of the ball to enhance reverse movement is blurred, but "artificial substances" are expressly forbidden by Law 42, just as much as interference with the seams or the surface.

What really offended during this match was the overt aggression, including chat designed to distract the batsman, chuntering at close quarters from disgruntled fast bowlers, and, in the case of Shantha Sreesanth, a beamer to Kevin Pietersen and a bouncer bowled by the same bowler to Paul Collingwood from round the wicket and a yard beyond the popping crease.

Sreesanth lost half his match fee for a petty little tilt at Vaughan's shoulder as he walked past him, but he should have lost the rest of it for that deliberate no-ball and if the senior India players believe the beamer to have been deliberate, he should not play any more Test cricket until they are sure that he has learnt the lesson.

Test cricket is tough: always has been, certainly always will be when so much money as well as personal and national pride is at stake. To play it cricketers have to be strong in mind as well as in body, a lesson now clearly absorbed by the impressive Chris Tremlett, whose shortened run and sharper focus have transformed him from meek failure in Perth last winter to imposing success here. But he has not had to rant and rave to take more wickets.

Accuracy is the first essential, and in any case silent menace has always been more chilling than brash aggression, with the possible exception of Dennis Lillee. When it comes to calculated aggression, as opposed to genuine anger of the kind that Allan Donald displayed against Mike Atherton at Trent Bridge in 1998, players demean themselves and break the law.

"I'm driving a Porsche Carrera; what's your car?" was one question picked up by the stump microphone this week when England were trying to unsettle an India batsman. That sort of tactic is not only not clever, or acceptable; it is also an illegal attempt to distract the batsman.

The next time an umpire hears the like he should issue a firm warning. If the remarks continue he should apply a five-run penalty to the batting side; then, if necessary, another five-run penalty. It would soon stop the nonsense, always provided that the ICC supports the umpire.

Darrell Hair arguably chose the wrong time and place at the Brit Oval last August, but he was applying the law. What has happened to him since has hardly encouraged the others, but if captains exercised their responsibilities we would need neither run penalties nor managing directors.

(Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the chief cricket correspondent of the Times, wrote this article for their website).