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MS Dhoni has left his future as captain in the selectors’ hands, but he has also said he won’t run away from the responsibility.”As a leader this is a challenge thrown at me,” Dhoni said moments after India completed their first set of back-to-back home Test losses since 1999-2000. “It is always good to lead a side when you are performing well. That is not the time you need a leader. Leading a side is all about when the team is not doing well. To try to gel the team together. To back the youngsters, back the seniors. Try to move in the right direction.”The easiest thing to do for me right now is to quit the captaincy and stay part of the side. That’s running away from responsibility that’s upon us. Of course there are others who will decide. There is BCCI and other administrative people who look into that. For me, my responsibility is to get the team together and be prepared for the next Test match.”As usual, Dhoni contradicted himself in the same answer when asked to elaborate on Duncan Fletcher’s role. He said, rightly so, that the team shouldn’t look for excuses and scapegoats, but in the same breath he made these Test defeats sound like an aberration, failing to admit to the lows that the team has reached.”He [Fletcher] has got excellent technical knowledge about our batting,” Dhoni said. “He guides us in the right direction. Ultimately once you cross that rope you are on your own whatever happens. That’s the time you have to get up and retaliate. That’s where we are lacking as of now.”It’s wrong to question the coach. We have won quite a few series, the ODI performance have been really good. In between we have won Test series. Okay in Australia and England we struggled, but this is a series after that that we have not done well, the last two matches that you see. You shouldn’t really look for excuses, to put it on the coach. Ultimately it is up to the 11 players who turn up on the field. On a wicket like this, you need to score more runs, and the situation will be different.”For the record, India have been knocked out of two ODI tournaments this year, they have lost to Bangladesh, and were disappointing in World Twenty20 too. In Tests, they have won at home, and that too against West Indies and New Zealand. In the West Indies, they won one Test and refused to try to win another. The Test record under Fletcher is 10 defeats to six wins. Reduce it to strong opposition, and it becomes 9-1. This is not to put all the blame on Fletcher, but to clarify that India haven’t won much at all, unlike what the captain believes.Dhoni also said the side’s batting can’t run away from responsibility either. The first question he was asked at the press conference was, “How bad does it need to get before it gets better?” Dhoni didn’t answer directly, but responded with a description of batting failures.”The batting order will have to take responsibility,” he said. “We need to score more runs. This was a very good wicket to bat on. Of course the bowlers will bowl a few good deliveries that you need to keep out. But the top seven, most of us will have to score at the same time so that we can get a par total, which the bowlers can look to defend. If you don’t score too many runs in the first innings and if the opposition score runs in the first innings, you will find yourself under pressure.”Dhoni said this was not the worst phase of his career. The worst came in England and Australia, he said, for at least here they can hope to rectify the problems. “If you talk about the low, the England, Australia series were the lows because we weren’t able to compete,” he said. “Here we know what the faults are and we should be able to rectify those. Overall the bowlers are doing well, I think. Once you don’t get enough runs on the board you question bowlers too as to if they would have defended a bigger score as well, but I think the spinners have done really well. Bit more contribution from the fast bowlers would really help.”On the fast bowlers, the obvious question was about Zaheer Khan’s effectiveness and fitness. “It’s a very technical question,” Dhoni said. “The beauty of it is we all know the problem and it will be great help if find out a solution. Everybody is asking the same question.”As far as the fitness is concerned, he has been the way he is for the last few years. Definitely he is not unfit, he is doing everything. The England batsmen are doing well. From behind it looks as if he is bowling in the right area. Bowlers sometimes go through a phase when they don’t get wickets. This is a phase maybe. As far as the bowling is concerned he is still bowling quite the same. He is swinging it both ways. We will have to wait and watch. He looks fit. Fitness is not an issue.”We will wait and watch indeed. Dhoni was due to go to a selection meeting soon after leaving the ground.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Travis Head helped Australia recover from the loss of four early wickets in the chase•ICC/Getty

Defending champions Australia opened their Under-19 World Cup campaign with a comprehensive victory against England, set up by a powerful fast-bowling performance on a quick pitch in Townsville. Their top order struggled against the new ball during the chase, but that wobble was shored up by Travis Head and the captain William Bosisto, who played mature innings and shared a match-winning partnership.The tournament began in idyllic conditions. The Tony Ireland Stadium on the outskirts of town, surrounded by grass banks, trees and hills, was bathed in sunshine under a cloudless sky. A cool breeze blew through the day to take the edge off the sun. In perfect weather for cricket watching, a fair number of spectators turned up even though this tournament has had little publicity in Australia. Not many cheered when Bosisto won the toss, but that little bit of luck was important given the pace and bounce in the pitch.Australia’s opening bowlers – the left-right combination of Joel Paris and Mark Steketee – struck in their first overs. Paris, bowling with the wind, trapped Daniel Bell-Drummond, who had made 91 in the warm-up against Pakistan and is one of England’s premier batsmen, leg before for a duck with an inswinger. In this extremely professional environment, there was a reminder that the competitors are only young boys when Bell-Drummond came into the grandstand and got a consoling hug from his father, who has made the trip to watch his son play.Steketee, who ran into the stiff wind, took two balls to bowl Ben Foakes, who had made a hundred in the Pakistan warm-up but shouldered arms today to another inswinger. Paris and Steketee bowled with impressive stamina, sustaining pace and bounce through seven-over opening spells. By the time their partnership ended, England were 56 for 3 after 14.There was no let-up in intensity from Australia, though. Gurinder Sandhu, who had taken a five-wicket haul that included a hat-trick in the warm-up against Scotland, bowled faster and with more hostility than his team-mates. He was economical too and had figures of 5-1-9-1 at one stage, having induced an edge from Aneesh Kapil with a short ball.Soon more England batsmen were walking through the grandstand, not to meet family but to review their performance with the team analyst seated on the terrace: a reminder of how professional the boys have to be. Craig Overton held up one end for a while, hitting the legspinner Shane Cassell for boundaries, but the offspinner Ashton Turner broke England in two balls, dismissing Ben Duckett and Sam Wood in succession.Sandhu’s first spell was long too – it included the crucial wicket of Craig Overton for 35 – and he was quick to the very end, hitting the other Overton twin, Jamie, on the body with an accurate short ball in his eighth over on the trot.England lasted only 38.3 overs, which meant Australia were chasing before the lunch break. In those 6.5 overs, Reece Topley broke Jimmy Peirson’s middle stump, which one of the substitutes took off the ground, presumably to keep as a souvenir. Topley was fast but Jamie Overton was faster, getting balls to bounce as well. One flew over the keeper’s head. He and Topley struck again to reduce Australia to 30 for 3 by the time it was time for lunch.Australia lost another quickly after the break – the promising Kurtis Patterson – but things were about to improve. Bosisto did what was needed, to stay at the wicket, while Head scored quickly to take the pressure off. Head had made 87 off 42 balls against Scotland and today he ensured that Australia did not stagnate in a challenging situation.Head brought up his half-century off 52 balls and, shortly after measured celebrations, he lofted Craig Overton over the long-on boundary to seal victory with the first six of the match. It was no mean effort. The boundaries at the Tony Ireland Stadium are large.

ScorecardKent maintained a firm grip at the end of the third day of their LV= County Championship Division Two match with Hampshire at West End after rapid innings from Geraint Jones and Darren Stevens.But only 34 overs were possible because of heavy showers during which Kent extended their first-innings lead to 146 with two wickets left and a day remaining. With 80 minutes at the start of play lost to the weather, Kent were in a hurry and Jones and Stevens provided the momentum.Kent, who started the match only five points behind Hampshire in second place, began the third day 291 for 5 in response to Hampshire’s first innings total of 292 all out. Nightwatchman Mark Davies and Stevens took the score to 324 before they were parted, Davies miscuing a pull off James Tomlinson to Dimitri Mascarenhas at mid-on after making 17.Jones and Stevens came together at this stage to compile a stand of 61 for the seventh wicket as the easy-paced batting strip showed no signs of offering help to the Hampshire bowlers. Sean Ervine made the breakthrough at 385 just as Hampshire began to despair, bowling Jones for 36 as the Kent batsman attempted to drive.But Stevens remained in place until 409 and a full complement of batting points assured before he drove Ervine to James Tomlinson who clutched the catch. This brought Kent captain James Tredwell and Matthew Coles together and before rain intruded a third time, their ninth wicket partnership had gleaned a further 29 runs.Kent ended the day at 438 for 8 with Tredwell 21 not out and Coles unbeaten with 19 which included two sixes in the same over from Danny Briggs. Ervine’s tenacity earned him close of play figures of 3 for 95 and Tomlinson has so far taken 4 for 79 with both sides needing to find a route to a positive result.

Tony Greig has appealed to the BCCI to abandon self interest and “embrace the spirit of cricket and govern in the best interests of world cricket, not just for India and its business partners.”Greig, the South Africa-born former England captain, utilised his invitation to deliver the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture from Lord’s, to call upon India to “accept its responsibility as leader of the cricket world” and ensure that the long-term future of Test cricket and the less powerful Test nations were prioritised above short-term commercialism.At present, Greig said, India’s power was being used to undermine the credibility and worth of the ICC and self-interest was preventing beneficial advancements such as the universal adoption of the Decision Review System (DRS) and a coherent international playing schedule. Greig also criticised “India’s apparent indifference towards Test cricket and… its indifference to the urgency to introduce anti-doping rules and the rumoured corruption hanging over the IPL.”Unfortunately,” Greig said, “India is pre-occupied with money and T20 cricket and sees its IPL and Champions League as more important than a proper international calendar. To compound the problems, India has not only sold part of the game to private interests but some of her administrators are seen to have a conflict of interest, which makes it more difficult for it to act in the spirit of the game.”We can huff and puff as much as we like and have all sorts of external reports,” Greig continued, “but this situation can only be resolved by India accepting that the spirit of cricket is more important than generating billions of dollars; it’s more important than turning out multi-millionaire players; and it’s more important than getting square with Australia and England for their bully-boy tactics towards India over the years. It’s ironic that the world, including India, rightly worships at the Nelson Mandela altar because of his conciliatory attitude but then India eschews his approach by indulging in a little pay back.”The Spirit of Cricket lecture began in 2001 and was named after the late Colin Cowdrey, the former England captain and a past MCC president, who, together with another former president Ted Dexter, were instrumental in including the spirit of cricket as the preamble to the Laws of the game. Last year Kumar Sangakkara gave a widely acclaimed Cowdrey lecture where he talked about controversial issues within Sri Lanka cricket and also about the importance of the sport in his country.Rarely if ever, however, has the Cowdrey Lecture been used to deliver such an obvious rebuke to a specific national board. But Greig, who relinquished the England captaincy in 1977 to play and recruit in Kerry Packer’s rebel World Series Cricket, has never been one to shy away from a battle and pulled no punches in suggesting that India were now too powerful for the good of world cricket.”Much of the game is controlled by the BCCI because it controls enough votes to block any proposal put forward at the ICC board meetings,” Greig said. “The reason for this is some countries would not survive without the financial opportunities India provides. What is just as disturbing is through the Champions League, South Africa and Australia have a partnership with India and are unlikely to risk offending India. The current Champions League 10-year contract generates just under a billion dollars and is 50% owned by India with Australia and South African sharing the rest.The BCCI have continually refused to accept the DRS despite more countries being in favour•Getty Images

“As a result of the dependence on India the process adopted by the ICC is simply not working. The ICC cricket committee for example is made up of a group of top class current and former players and umpires. They go to great lengths to make recommendations that they consider in the best interests of the game. These recommendations are then submitted to the CEO’s committee for approval, which normally happens as a formality. The recommendations are then raised at the ICC board meeting and if India doesn’t like them, they are, at best, modified or thrown out. It’s a sorry state of affairs and very frustrating for those who give so much time to getting things right.”Greig did find some praise for the BCCI, crediting them for their successful commercialism and the decision to utilise profits from the IPL to ensure that past players were cared for. “We must acknowledge and praise India for embracing the spirit of cricket through the financial opportunities it provides, which has enabled a number of Test playing countries to survive, and some to thrive,” Greig said. “World cricket would be in a sorry state if it weren’t for the money shared with other countries from India’s television deals.”If there is proof of the leadership India can provide, it is the recent announcement of a one-time benefit payment of $13 million to former national and domestic players for their services to Indian cricket.”But he insisted that such strength carried with it a responsibility and called for India to wield its power more judiciously. And, on the day when the ICC’s executive board, chaired by BCCI chairman, declined to act on the recommendation of the ICC’s cricket committee or chief executives committee and apply the DRS universally, Grieg’s words on the subject were particularly timely.”It can’t be good for the game when the media devotes so many words and so much ink to bad decisions, which ultimately undermines the integrity of some results,” Greig said. “The DRS is not perfect, but it does err in favour of the umpires’ decisions and according to the ICC, fewer mistakes are made with its use. And furthermore, there is less conflict on the ground.”India has two reasons for opposing it: One, because its superstars had such an embarrassing experience with it in the early days. Two, the BCCI argues that the DRS is too inexact. Ironically, the spirit of cricket is batting on both sides in this one. The cavalier approach says DRS is not in the spirit of cricket, but on the other hand, the Indian superstars should act in the spirit of cricket and accept the majority viewpoint.”Elsewhere in the speech, Greig called for the introduction of lie detector tests to help in the fight against corruption, reasoning that it was no greater an imposition into the private life of athletes than routine drugs tests, and called for the IPL to be expanded into “an Asian League” to include teams from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Each of those boards, he said, should be given a financial stake in the competition, which would enable them to finance their other cricketing obligations. He also called for Australia to welcome New Zealand teams into the Big Bash and for England to “set up its equivalent of the IPL and include teams from the West Indies and one team from Ireland.”Despite his concerns, Greig, now aged 65, insisted he was optimistic for the future of the game. “Fortunately, I think most of the problems can generally be addressed if India invokes and adheres to the spirit of cricket,” he said. “Mahatma Gandhi said: “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. As cricket certainly resides in the hearts and souls of Indian people I am optimistic India will lead cricket by acting in the best interests of all countries rather than just for India.”

Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lanka’s record-breaking spin bowler, has dismissed England’s Twenty20 format as “old fashioned” and called for it to adopt the franchise format favoured by the IPL.Muralitharan is about to begin his second season with Gloucestershire in Friends Life t20 and as the competition begins he has risked a storm by suggesting that they should merge with their fiercest rivals Somerset.”That would be good as they are close counties and they would benefit financially,” he said.The ECB insists that the 18-county system is sacrosanct yet England players play little, if any, domestic T20 cricket because of an international programme that dominates the entire summer. England’s T20 tournament was an innovative product when it launched in 2003, but Muralitharan argued that it has now fallen behind rival tournaments around the world.”They introduced it worldwide but now England is old-fashioned,” he told BBC Points West. “They need to change and become franchised teams and each county would benefit financially. If it happens like that it would be huge in England. I think the market is there, and the TV rights will come.”Muralitharan, 40, has a wealth of experience on his side. As well as Sri Lanka his clubs include Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kochi Tuskers, Chittagong Kings, Kandurata, Lancashire and Wellington.Since its inception in 2003, the game has been adapted worldwide, taking on several different guises. But the FLt20 will struggle to make impact this summer, not just competing against England’s unrelenting schedule but the European football championships and London’s hosting of the Olympics.Debate is still going on about the structure of England’s T20 tournament in 2013, but this season the 18 counties, restricted to a maximum of two overseas players, play 10 matches in three groups of six before reaching the quarterfinal stages.Muralitharan even suggested that England’s T20 competition was lagging behind Bangladesh, a competition that has been characterised by a stand off between FICA, the international players’ association, and the BCB over owed player payments.”Bangladesh launched it big and their crowds have been 30-40,000 for every match,” he said. “Australia has merged into eight franchises so I think England should also do that and it could equal IPL.”Muralitharan starts his second spell with Gloucestershire on Thursday against local rivals Somerset, and believes merging the two counties to become a T20 franchise would be a good move.”At the end of the day the public will see good cricket and enjoy it,” he said. “Money will be spinning from the competition and they can sustain the other forms of the game within county cricket. It would be one of the best things to happen if they do that. It will make sure the competition is more successful than what it is now.”

A tinder-dry Queen’s Park Oval pitch drew comparisons to Kanpur as West Indies and Australia weighed up the possibility of decking their teams with spin when the second Test begins on Sunday.Having initially offered a slightly damp, tacky appearance when viewed by the tourists on their first visit to the ground on Friday, the strip had dried considerably by the time they took a second look the day before the match, while also showing evidence of surface cracking. Oil stains left by the heavy roller gave the wicket a slightly mottled look, and gave Darren Sammy and Michael Clarke much to ponder ahead of a match the hosts must win to stay in the race for the Frank Worrell Trophy.Nathan Lyon and Michael Beer both bowled lengthy spells in the nets, Lyon frequently in discussions with the coach Mickey Arthur, and Clarke said both would be considered. Having not chosen two specialist spin bowlers in the same team even when confronted by the sharply turning Galle pitch in Sri Lanka last September, playing both would be quite a departure for the visitors, and would also force the omission of one of Ryan Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus or Peter Siddle – a difficult call in every case.”It [two spinners] is definitely worth thinking about, for sure,” Clarke said. “The wicket looks very dry, yesterday as soon as they took the covers off it looked a bit tacky, but no doubt there’s a big possibility we could play two spinners on that wicket for sure.”Arthur mentioned Kanpur when asked to name a pitch of similar appearance. He was coaching South Africa in 2008 when they were confronted by a sharply spinning track on which India levelled the series at one match apiece. After South Africa were rolled for 121 in the third innings to lose in three days, Kanpur’s officials were warned by the ICC for preparing a strip rated as “poor”, just as Galle’s was last year.The Port-of-Spain pitch has returned a series of low scoring results in recent times, and offered plenty of assistance to spin bowlers. The hosts included the offspin of Shane Shillingford, in addition to Devendra Bishoo’s leg breaks and Narsingh Deonarine’s part-timers, in a squad of 14 in anticipation of more of the same. However its low and variable bounce means that fast bowlers can also reap rewards, provided they are straight and accurate. Shane Watson and Sammy are two such men who will be capable of hitting the same spot ball after ball.”[There has been] a lot of first-class cricket played here [this season] and so far there’s been a result. So we expect this pitch to be one that will have a [result],” Sammy said. “When we play here it is a little bit low as well, so I think bowling straight would be the key.”You’ve got to be accurate and I think that’s what we’re going to look to do. We have Fidel [Edwards], [Kemar] Roach, bowling quick. If they’re accurate, like they were in Barbados, and a few decisions that were close end up in our favour, it could be a different story. We’re looking to go out and play another good Test match, hopefully we can be on the winning side.”We’ve included Shillingford in the line-up, everyone in the 14-man squad is eligible for selection, the chairman is here so we will make some decisions on the best combination to help us win the Test match.”Rain is predicted to intervene on most days of the Test, leaving Clarke to also factor that into his team selection and tactics. “I think rain’s definitely going to play a part, the forecast is for rain for the first three days of the Test match,” Clarke said. “They say the drainage here is very good, and it rained a fair bit yesterday but the ground was still fine to play on. So it’s going to be more the lack of time in the game [that could effect the result]. Come 5pm, I think it’s going to be quite dark as well.”