OH ye of little faith. How could we have doubted England's ability to come back from the dead in Sri Lanka ?

Suffice it to say, it's been large helpings of humble pie all round on the sports desk this week.

However, the dish has left something of a bitter taste in the mouth given the depths to which cricket plumbed in Kandy over a dramatic weekend.

It made for gripping viewing as England produced the super-human effort I suggested last week would be necessary to win the middle Test on their "tour too far."

But having completed my 100 lines it's fair to say I shouldn't be the only one outside the headmaster's study.

In face of some inept umpiring, players from both sides overstepped the mark in trying to take the law into their own hands.

The Sri Lankans set the tone in the first Test and were probably the most culpable.

But our boys were far from whiter than white and for the good of the game let's hope that clear-the-air talks before the decisive third Test, which starts on Thursday, produce a raising of the standards.

The players, perhaps predictably, have blamed the poor umpiring for encouraging unsporting behaviour where no-one walks and appeals accompany anything that moves in the belief that one will somehow balance out the other.

Of course it's all too easy for me to pontificate when I haven't picked up a bat in years, have never played anywhere near professional cricket (although I once hit Ian Bishop for four and was dismissed by Chris Old for a similar number) and haven't got my Test career on the line.

But as well as introducing the best umpires in the world, regardless of nationality, and increasing the use of television evidence to eradicate errors, the players (as they do in football) have a duty to clean up the game.

It may be wishful thinking for fielders to appeal only when they genuinely think it's out and for batsmen to acknowledge when they've nicked one. And international cricket is always at its most exciting when the game has an edge.

But results will be about as relevant as those thrown into question by the match-fixing scandal if they are decided by the teams that are the most devious and not the most talented.

And anyway, if it all comes down to sledging and psychological warfare what chance have we got against the Aussies this summer ? The same Aussies that is who have doubtless taken note of our efforts on the sub-continent and proceeded to grind India into the dust.

ENOUGH doom and gloom, let's hear it for Roy Essendoh.

If you can't get Ian Wright, as Lawrie Sanchez tried to do, then who better ?

The footballing gypsy ensured his place in FA Cup folklore by taking Wycombe into the semi-finals of a competition that refuses to bow to the money-mad Champions League.

And what more fitting way could there be to prove that smaller clubs can't be sold down the river by constant tinkering with the transfer system than for Wycombe to go all the way to the final itself ?

How sweet it would be for Steve Brown to lift the old trophy and take his shirt off to give it a polish.

STILL on the subject of cup dreams, good luck to Clitheroe when they take on Taunton Town in the first leg of their FA Vase semi-final this weekend. A decent result in the West Country and Shawbridge will be bursting at the seams on Saturday week, England or not.