Spokesman Ranga Reddy called for security to be tightened to prevent the possibility of a player being assaulted.

"We feel that this sort of thing cannot take place - it is unacceptable," said Reddy.

"Somebody should have intercepted this man and taken him away, something a lot more serious could have happened.

"It's always possible for an individual to get onto the field of play unless we completely sanitise the team and keep them away from spectators," admitted Knight.

"We would have to build fences to do that which is something we do not want to do but this is desperately sad, it is the one lapse we have had here this year.

"We're taking this incident extremely seriously as we always do with any breach of security.

"We didn't stop him quickly enough and we didn't get people to him quickly enough.

"We don't rush in and tackle, that's never been the policy, but we were certainly slow in reacting and that's certainly something we're going to have to look at."

MCC stewards were also at the centre of another controversial incident during the Test between England and India.

An investigation was underway over complaints made by four Indian journalists that they were heckled and abused as they left the ground on Saturday night.

Journalists complained

After the alleged incident on Saturday, four Indian journalists said a lone steward had confronted them as they left for the evening on Saturday.

They included the well-known figure of Harsha Bhogle, who has acted as acted as an occasional Test Match Special commentator.

The Press men said the steward had pushed one of them, broadcaster Gautam Bhimani, to the ground and slammed the gate shut on his nose.

MCC head of communications Ian Wilton said the incident was being investigated.

"All those involved have been asked, or are being asked to make statements so the investigation can be as thorough as possible," he said.