The umpires had to intervene on Sunday evening when Zaheer reacted angrily to the England slip cordon when he had a verbal exchange, aiming most of his wrath against gully fielder Kevin Pietersen.

The incident spurred him the following day as he claimed five for 75 in England’s second innings to finish with a match haul of nine for 134. India need just 63 runs to win on Tuesday’s final day to win the second Test, with all ten wickets in hand.

“There were some incidents that happened on the field while I was batting,” Zaheer told reporters at Trent Bridge. “It definitely inspired me to do well

“On the crease there was a jelly bean while I was batting so I just chucked one off the wicket and when I played the next ball there were again some jelly beans there on the wicket.

“So obviously someone was chucking (them) from behind on the wicket which I didn’t like so I just went up to them and said, ‘Guys what is this all about, I’m here to play cricket.’ So they came at me and I was upset about it and I just reacted accordingly.

“I didn’t know exactly from where it was coming, maybe I blamed the wrong one, I was just not bothered at that time because I just felt it was insulting. When I removed it, it shouldn’t have come there again.”

Left-arm seamer Zaheer, 29, said his five-wicket second innings haul was the best spell of his career so far and he attributed the success to the season he played in England for Worcestershire last year when he bowled from April to September.

England’s Paul Collingwood, who scored 63 and gave England some hope while putting on 112 with his skipper Michael Vaughan, who cracked a fluent 124, did not apologise for his team’s antics and continued the joke even further.

“Zaheer came in and obviously wasn’t too pleased,” Collingwood said. “I think he preferred the blue ones to the pink ones to be honest.”

Whether Vaughan would be pleased at the antics when his team were on the back foot and in need of serious fighting qualities will soon be revealed. For now, England don't have egg on their faces but plenty of jelly beans. Sweet revenge for Zaheer.

Collingwood did, though, offer his own tribute to the way in which Zaheer bowled to the English batsmen.

“He’s got a great knack of swinging the ball both ways with a similar kind of action. He just tweaks the position of the seam a little bit and it’s quite hard to pick up.”