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"The match referee went into the dressing room and spoke to both coaches and asked them to calm it down," England spokesman David Clarke said after the second day in Bangalore.

India finished the day 99 for three, still 237 behind England's first innings total.

He exchanged words with Hussain, who responded angrily.

And umpire A.V. Jayaprakash was forced to cool tempers by speaking to both men.

But South African Lindsay shrugged off the incident.

"There is no problem. Everything is fine," he said on being asked if there had been any protest over the incident.

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew agreed, although he described England's approach as "horribly tedious".

"England's tactics were negative in the extreme with Giles bowling persistently into the rough outside the right-hander's leg stump," said Agnew.

"[Shiv Sunder] Das, Tendulkar and Hussain became involved in an argument which was defused by the umpires and, certainly, from a spectator's view, it was desperately dull."

And Flintoff played down the incident.

"It was a drinks break and I was just drinking from my bottle rather than worrying what was going on," he said.

"It's been a competitive series all the way through, probably no more competitive today than it has been for the last eight or nine days."

Quiet word

Lindsay, known as a disciplinarian, had demanded impeccable on-field behavior from the two teams before the series got underway.

But he has been forced to have a quiet word with players from either team during all three Tests.

England accused their hosts of going against the spirit of the game by appealing for the wicket of Michael Vaughan after he handled the ball on the first day.

And Jayaprakash and colleague Asoka de Silva of Sri Lanka had to intervene before the Tendulkar incident in India's innings.

There was an exchange of words between Giles and Das after de Silva turned down a bat-pad catch appeal against the opener.

Television replays showed that Das was out when a Giles delivery went off his bat and pad into the gloves of wicketkeeper James Foster.