Ian Bell, left, and Eoin Morgan leave the field for tea. The Warwickshire batsman was initially given out but was later reinstated. Photograph: Philip Brown/Reuters
Andy Flower has defended England's conduct in having the run-out appeal against Ian Bell withdrawn, stating that if they had attempted to dismiss Sachin Tendulkar in similar fashion in Mumbai it would have caused an "international incident".
India have been widely praised for allowing Bell to resume his innings after tea on the third day of the second Test at Trent Bridge, especially since it emerged that Flower and the England captain, Andrew Strauss, had taken the unusual step of visiting the tourists' dressing room during the interval.
However, Flower, the England team director, suggested that those who have criticised their behaviour are guilty of "double standards" for failing to recognise what might have happened had the boot been on the other foot.
"We didn't think sitting in our changing room and fuming quietly to ourselves was going to do any good," he said. "We thought communicating like that would be the way to go. We felt that Bell wasn't attempting to take a run and therefore we wanted to ask the Indian side to reconsider their appeal."
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India's captain, said his team had already made the decision to reprieve Bell before the intervention of Flower and Strauss – although nobody from the tourists' camp has denied subsequent suggestions that it was Tendulkar who instigated the move after Dhoni had refused three times on the field to withdraw his appeal.
Flower risked reopening the controversy by implicitly criticising India for making the appeal in the first place. "You should also consider what their reaction would have been if the England side had run out an Indian player like that. I'm not convinced there wouldn't have been uproar."
Asked directly about what might have happened had Tendulkar been the subject of the appeal, he said: "If an England side had done that in Mumbai, I think there would have been a proper international incident on the cards. I don't think that's being overly dramatic. We've seen similar things happen before. In evaluating the situation, I don't think you should have double standards."
When Tony Greig ran out the West Indies batsman Alvin Kallicharran in similar circumstances in Trinidad in 1974, there was just such an incident, with spectators storming the ground and laying siege to the pavilion, and the British high commissioner consulted before the England captain, Mike Denness, agreed to withdraw the appeal overnight.
Flower also warned his players against the dangers of being swept along by the general expectation that their coronation as the world's best Test team is now a matter of time, stressing that even the series against India is not yet won, never mind by the two-Test margin necessary to claim top spot in the International Cricket Council world rankings.
"I would like to emphasise right now that we're ahead in the series but we're only halfway through the series," he said. "So there is no point in triumphalism, we don't even know if we're going to win the series yet. At the forefront of our minds right now should be resting and recuperating after the back-to-back Tests and then getting our minds and bodies ready for the next challenge at Edgbaston. It's actually not only pointless looking further ahead than that, it's dangerous."
He said that England would make a decision on Friday over whether to call in cover for Jonathan Trott, who is a doubt for the third Test that starts at Edgbaston next Wednesday after damaging his shoulder in the field at Trent Bridge. Flower said that scans had shown "no structural damage" but that Trott "is still in a bit of discomfort and nowhere near 100% yet". Chris Tremlett and Graeme Swann are also being monitored but are expected to be named in the squad on Saturday.
James Taylor, the tiny Leicestershire batsman, may have overtaken Ravi Bopara as the next man in line after scoring 76 for the England Lions against Sri Lanka A in Scarborough on Tuesday while Bopara only managed 19 runs. But the former captain Michael Vaughan has urged England to change the balance of their team if Trott is ruled out by promoting Matt Prior and Tim Bresnan in the order, allowing Tremlett to return as a fourth specialist seamer, if he recovers from a hamstring problem that kept him out at Trent Bridge.
Otherwise, as Flower conceded: "If we keep with three seamers and a spinner, it will be a difficult call to make. We need to see conditions first but our four seamers are all performing exceptionally well. Bresnan, Tremlett, [Jimmy] Anderson and [Stuart] Broad are battling for the top spots in a very healthy way. That sort of competition is a great thing for English cricket."
• This article was amended on 3 August 2011. The original photo caption referred to Ian Bell as the Warwickshire bowler. This has been corrected
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