IF David Beckham were to enquire: "What's a Greek urn?" the answer would doubtless be: "Several million drachma less than you."

So it was most kind of the Greeks to pelt the England captain with enough of their coinage to buy several ouzos after Wednesday night's win.

The Greeks used to be such a civilised lot, but perhaps they were a bit miffed about the booing of their anthem, which is where this column came in eight months ago.

I kicked off by suggesting that Kevin Keegan should have resigned immediately before the defeat by Germany, not straight after it, in response to the disgraceful booing of the German anthem.

Things have changed remarkably since - apart from the booing, and there's probably not much Sven can do about that.

These overseas coaches are certainly having an impact. Most of our gold medallists at Sydney enjoyed foreign aid, Duncan Fletcher has transformed the England cricket team and it's five out of five for Sven.

It seems we can't produce coaches any more than we can produce captains, although recent accolades for Beckham suggest faith is growing that he can grow into the role.

Perhaps he'll even earn a few marks from the German fans.

TALKING of captains, Nasser Hussain has emerged with great distinction from a dubious crop of candidates and I don't think England would have lost to Parkistan on Monday had he been in charge.

With neither Mike Atherton nor Graham Thorpe keen to do the job, it was left to the ever-willing Alec Stewart to resume a post from which he was dismissed as a failure.

Stewart has many admirable qualities, but incisive thinking is not one of them.

What on earth was he doing, when so well set himself in the first innings, taking singles off the first balls of two overs, resulting in the immediate demise of Darren Gough and Matthew Hoggard?

One quality which Stewart does bring to captaincy is diplomacy, which helped to get the Pakistanis off the hook for their questionable tactics.

At the time of Mike Gatting poking umpire Shakoor Rana in the chest in 1987 no less a diplomat than Tom Graveney observed: "Pakistan have been cheating us for 30 years."

They're still at it. Ball tampering, running on the pitch, incessant chat, over-zealous appealing and bringing on a much more nimble fielder for the suddenly incapacitated Inzamam ul Haq - all these things tarnished their victory at Old Trafford.

It may seem churlish to pick fault after a magnificent Test match, but it needs to be stressed that the bursting of England's bubble owed a good deal to bending of the rules.

There was a spell of vintage Waqar Younis on the final afternoon, but he has always been at the forefront of ball doctoring and Channel 4 had a clear close-up of him illegally running his thumb nail across the ball. He seems to have got away with it, which merely brings cricket's ability to police itself into further disrepute.

Whether constant no-balling can be labelled cheating is arguable, but there's little doubt that the Pakistanis would take full advantage of the umpires' failure to spot it.

During that late crash of eight wickets half of them fell to no-balls, which is clearly not acceptable.

If such a distinguished umpire as David Shepherd finds it difficult to keep an eye on no-balls and be sure of seeing everything which goes on at the other end then this is one area where technological assistance is required.

The combination of a no-ball and an erroneous lbw decision provided a dreadful double whammy for Nick Knight, the one consolation being that his overall failure will make it easy for the selectors to leave him out for Hussain to return.

WHAT a feather in Newcastle Falcons' cap to have three of their star young backs in the England team against Canada.

The cream of the England crop may be in Australia with the Lions, but it's still a great achievement for Jamie Noon, David Walder and Michael Stephenson.

Noon must be the first player to turn out for Whitby then go on to full England honours. Although a Humbersider by birth, he went to Fyling Hall School and played for Whitby before moving to Newcastle.

THONGS ain't what they used to be in the world of squash. For such a dull spectator sport, any attempt to brighten it up should be applauded and I'm all in favour of the efforts of the aptly-named Vicky Botwright.

The 23-year-old world No 18 from Manchester wanted to wear a thong during the British Open Championship, explaining: "Some sports clothing can be very restrictive in the hot and demanding confines of a squash court."

Permission has been refused, however, which should not come as a great surprise as rulers of the women's game still frown upon the wearing of shorts.

Obviously they don't know a good thong when they see it.