We admit we're coming to the party a little late on the whole jelly bean-tossing English cricket players brouhaha.

But in our defense, it's only because when we read the "Jelly beans cause English test wobble" headline, we simply assumed it was another piece of obscure cricket jargon and did what we normally do when we see stories whose headlines are laden with obscure cricket jargon.

We ignored it.

But come on. Even though there were no references to "tea" in the headline, it still doesn't require a huge leap of the imagination to come to the conclusion that "jelly beans" is just part of the sport's lexicon when you read intro paragraphs like this one:

"India's Dinesh Karthik has fueled the sledging row with England by claiming he was 'chirped' after he had taken his stance in the first Test."

However, that proved to be an inaccurate -- and quite possibly culturally insensitive -- assumption on our part.

India's Zaheer Khan actually accused English fielders of throwing jelly beans at him while he was batting during a recent test (for the record, that one is cricket jargon ... and not a reference to some sort of examination).

"I felt it was insulting," Khan said. "I wasn't sure where it came from but it definitely came from a fielder."

"Zaheer obviously came in and wasn't too pleased," said England's Paul Collingwood. "I think he prefers the blue ones to the pink ones."