LONDON, Nov 12: Top cricket names Ian Botham, Allan Lamb and Imran Khan were told by a High Court judge on Friday to give up the "folly" of an eight-year battle they have fought over the legal costs of a libel action and strive towards settling the matter.

Mr Justice Richards told the retired international players that "good sense" would lead them to settle the issue of the cost of Botham and Lamb's failed 1996 libel action against Khan.

Costs at the time were estimated at 500,000 pounds ($920,000) but Justice Richards warned that the extra costs that would result from continuing to litigate could easily exceed the amount fought over.

The judge ruled, however, that he was still obliged to allow proceedings to continue. Imran is seeking assessment and taxation of the amounts due to him from Botham and Lamb.

The English duo had argued that the assessment proceedings should be stayed or struck out on grounds of delay. They were launched more than seven years after the jury found in Khan's favour in 1996 in a libel action over an article he wrote after Botham and Lamb accused him of ball-tampering.

The former Pakistan captain described the pair as racist uneducated and lacking in class. Justice Richards said: "The assessment proceedings must be allowed to continue, though it will be clear from what I said that, in my view, it would be folly for the parties to incur yet further substantial expenditure on the continuation of those proceedings rather than striving to reach a belated negotiated settlement of the whole matter."