While England's use of an almost religious leg-stump line to Sachin Tendulkar at Bangalore has caused much disquiet, Angus Fraser has revealed that this is hardly a new practice among modern-day England captains. Writing in today's Guardian (London), Fraser said that Mike Atherton asked him to bowl down the leg side to Brian Lara on a Trent Bridge shirtfront in 1995. But Fraser refused and Atherton instead turned to Dominic Cork. Ironically Cork later had Lara caught down the leg side gloving an attempted pull, though by then Lara had smacked 152.

"Atherton once asked me to bowl down the leg side against Lara," Fraser said. "I refused because I felt, in doing it, I was admitting to Lara that I had no answer to him and could not get him out through skill.

"Atherton, not for the first time, told me to 'bugger off down to fine-leg then', and asked Dominic Cork to bowl this way, which he did.

Fraser, who took 177 wickets in 46 Tests for England, has been the captain of Middlesex since 2000.

"As a current player I know and admit we are all prepared to push the laws of the game to the limit if it means we can gain some sort of advantage. However this is one tactic I do not care for ... because of the obvious efficacy of the tactic I feel ICC needs to do something to negate its legitimacy."

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