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The Supreme Court has suggested the formation of a new three-member panel to inquire into the corruption allegations in IPL 2013, and said that N Srinivasan should continue to abstain from discharging his duties as BCCI president. The hearing to decide on the composition of the inquiry panel is scheduled for Tuesday, but it was reported the court had recommended that former High Court judge Mukul Mudgal head it.A bench of Justices AK Patnaik and JS Kehar also proposed the names of senior advocate and additional solicitor general N Nageshwar Rao and Assam Cricket Association member Nilay Dutta to be part of the panel.The bench said that the panel would conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations and submit its report to the Supreme Court.Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) secretary Aditya Verma, who had filed the petition against the BCCI and Srinivasan, said he would request that the Supreme Court monitor the working of the inquiry panel. “We will be satisfied if this probe panel investigation is conducted directly under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court,” he said.The court also heard on Monday a plea from the BCCI to allow Srinivasan to resume functioning as president because it said his absence was affecting cricket administration. The court said it would consider the request if Srinivasan stayed away from all matters concerning the IPL.Srinivasan had been allowed to contest the BCCI elections on September 29 by the Supreme Court, but with a rider which said that if he won, he could not take charge as president as long as it was hearing the case related to him and the board. That ruling came on a petition filed by the CAB seeking to restrain Srinivasan from running for re-election pending the verdict on a petition filed in July. A day after Srinivasan was re-elected unopposed as BCCI president, the Supreme Court deferred its decision on the CAB petition until October 7.The matter dates back to a plea that the CAB filed in June, raising charges of conflict of interest in the formation of the two-member inquiry panel set up to inquire allegations of corruption in the IPL. A Bombay High Court ruling later termed the probe panel “illegal”. The BCCI and the CAB filed petitions in the Supreme Court against this order, with the CAB contending that the Bombay High Court could have suggested a fresh mechanism to look into the corruption allegations.

David Clark, the former Kent captain and President of MCC, has died aged 94.Clark was born in Barming, Kent and played 75 matches for Kent between 1946 and 1951, captaining the county from between 1949 and1951. He was chairman between 1970 and 1974 and president in 1990. He was, at the time of his death, Kent’s oldest capped player.He joined the MCC committee in 1959 and later served on the club’s Cricket and General Purposes committees. He was the club’s president in 1977-78 and the treasurer for six years from 1980.He was manager of the MCC tour of India in 1963/4 and the 1970-71 Ashes tour, where his somewhat old-fashioned attitude did not always endear itself to the players. Ray Illingworth, England’s captain on the tour, described Clark as “an amiable, but somewhat ineffectual man.”Clark also chaired a number of MCC committees, which reviewed the structures of the County Championship and the role of the MCC. The ‘Clark Report’ – the result of a committee he chaired between 1965 and 1967 – contained several recommendations over the future of the domestic game, but nearly all were rejected by the counties.Commenting on the death of David Clark, Carl Openshaw, former Chairman and President of Kent County Cricket Club said; “David Clark was one of the most influential figures in English cricket in the second half of the twentieth century.”He was only the second man after Lord Harris to have held the posts of captain, chairman and president of Kent County Cricket Club, and he also played leading roles in the MCC and in the administration of English cricket.”A funeral is to be held for family only and a memorial service is likely to be held in the last two weeks of November.

West Indies A captain Kirk Edwards aims to use the tour of India later this month to force his way back into contention for the senior team.”There’s a job to be done [for the team]. I look forward to that,” Edwards said. “Personally, I know people harp on my Test stint against England last year but I think I had a good outing with some consistent scores. It was a bit disappointing but I’ve got over it and I’m looking forward to making some runs and moving back into the senior spotlight.”Edwards, 28, last played for West Indies in May 2012 and has since been searching for consistency in his batting. He seems a viable option in Tests with an average of 39.11 in nine matches but his ODI credentials – a top score of 40* at 19.12 – struggle to match up. His recent form is suspect as well, having played only one game for the Barbados Tridents in the Caribbean Premier League. However, the selectors have seen him as an A-team mainstay and continued to place faith in his leadership.With a mooted senior team trip to India before the visit to New Zealand, Edwards was determined to make the most out of this tour. “This is an opportunity to propel you into the senior team,” he said. “I need to keep getting scores to get back into Test cricket and I’ll be going about things in a professional manner, day-by-day. I’ve been on tour to India before and I’m familiar with the conditions, so this knowledge counts for a lot.”Edwards believes that his team has the right balance of youth and experience to enjoy a good outing in India. While happy to lead in the four-day matches, he was hopeful being relieved of limited-overs captaincy – with Kieran Powell taking over – will allow him to focus more on his own performances and present himself in better light to the West Indies selectors.His side completed a successful series against Sri Lanka A in June and Edwards was grateful that the selectors kept the majority of the nucleus intact. West Indies began those unofficial Tests in emphatic fashion, with three of their batsmen recording centuries in the same innings; Edwards, with 190, was the top-scorer. Besides two high-scoring draws, Edwards led his side to a 2-1 victory in the ODI series and secured the T20 series 1-0.”This unit we have here was formed for a while,” he said. “It’s positive to stay with this group, let players get comfortable and learn the game from and with each other. Experience counts for a lot and this continuity will help us.”The pitches and environment [in India] are different to the Caribbean. It’s different for spin and the new ball turns from ball one. Some outfields are quick and some pitches have a lack of bounce but we can – and will – capitalise on the good batting tracks. It’s a brilliant atmosphere because people love cricket in India, so I hope they come out for the games.”

Usman Khawaja has pointed to a decline in the standard of Australian domestic pitches as one of the reasons behind the dire batting that has consigned the Test team to six consecutive defeats, most recently the 347-run humiliation at Lord’s. While Khawaja showed signs of personal improvement, recovering from a poor first-innings shot to grind out 54 in the second, the collective failure of the team has led to many questions about why Australian batting has deteriorated.In recent summers, Sheffield Shield pitches have tended towards favouring bowlers, and Khawaja said he had noticed the gradual loss of each ground’s individual pitch characteristics. Where once Australian pitches were the envy of the rest of the world, now it is not uncommon to hear Australian batsman say how much they enjoy batting in England, where all disciplines of batting against pace, swing and spin are catered for.”I think it’s always nice to get a nice variety of wickets,” Khawaja said. “I know when I started a few years back the SCG was a big turner, it broke up massively, it’s not really the same anymore there. Adelaide used to be the same, then in WA [Western Australia] and Brisbane you’d get wickets that were fast.”Tassie [Tasmania] used to be a road but it’s not anymore, so things have changed a little bit in the last five years. The wickets have lost a bit of their characteristics over the last five years and it’d be really nice to see them come back.”Khawaja’s career has reflected the wider theme of a batting decline, even if he has done enough relative to others to earn a Test recall. Lord’s was his first match since playing against New Zealand in Hobart in late 2011, but since that summer he has only made another two centuries.”I played five games last year of Shield cricket for Queensland. I scored a hundred and a couple of 80s. Probably missed a few hundreds,” Khawaja said. “So I probably wasn’t hard enough on myself personally, but ever since I got dropped from Australia a couple of years ago it’s been up and down, trying to find my way back.”I feel like I’m in a good place now. Hopefully I can make some of those starts into big scores. That’s what I was trying to do, but you can’t control that. As long as you have the intention in your head that you want to score big, that’s all you can really do.”We had some bad shots [at Lord’s], myself included, a few other guys played some bad shots to get out, and you can’t do that even in first-class cricket. One guy might be able to get away with it but you can’t have three or four players playing bad shots and getting out, you let your whole team down. If you spend time in the middle things get easier, and that was probably the key for us in that first innings. It was a pretty good deck out there in the first innings.”When the matter of choppy scheduling was tossed up to him, Khawaja said he was not overly fussed by moving between first-class, limited-overs and Twenty20 fixtures, an increasingly common pattern for most Australian players due to the Big Bash League’s presence as the summer’s centrepiece. He also said the batsmen had to set a few simple goals and work towards them over the next three Tests, starting at Old Trafford next week.”It’s all in your head, how you want to play, how you want to go about it,” he said. “If you want to play shots you play shots, if you don’t you don’t, if you want to play straight you play straight. Obviously you practice a few different things but in the end it’s still watching the ball and hitting it. I think the schedule was all right last year and I think it’s getting better this year. I’ve got no complaints about it.”Obviously our batting hasn’t been as consistent as our bowling. We seem to take the wickets but we seem to let ourselves down with the bat. We understand how important first innings runs are, especially if you’re batting second in a game. That’s where you win cricket games. We’re not making any excuses. We’re not saying it’s good enough either. All we can do is go out there and apply our skills the best we can and try and take a bit of the onus on ourselves as batsmen in the top six to put our hands up.”There hasn’t been a hundred scored on tour and that’s got to be our first goal going forward. Then go from there. And then, you know, what happens in the games beforehand we can’t control. We can only control the next three Test matches.”

Ben Rohrer, Ahmed Shehzad and Davy Jacobs have been drafted in to the Caribbean Premier League as replacements for Steve Smith, Shaun Marsh and Aaron Finch, after the Australian trio was unable to get no-objection certificates from Cricket Australia.Rohrer will replace his countryman Smith for Antigua Hawksbills, Pakistan opener Shehzad will step in for Marsh for Jamaica Tallawahs, and South African wicketkeeper Jacobs will be coming in for Finch for Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel.Rohrer, who scored 295 runs at a strike-rate of 152.09 in the 2012-13 edition of the Big Bash League, said that he was relishing the prospect of working with Hawksbills coach Viv Richards and Ricky Ponting, who is part of the squad.Shehzad was part of the Pakistan squad that won the 2009 World Twenty20 and reached the semi-finals of the 2011 World Cup. He has scored two domestic T20 centuries and has a strike-rate of 134.23.”Losing Shaun is a shame but we have got a like-for-like replacement with Ahmed Shehzad who is perfect for the team’s balance,” Paul Nixon, the Tallawahs coach, said. Nixon also praised Shehzad’s “special ability” as a top-order batsman.”Chris (Gayle) knows him well and we believe that he will be a match-winner who can really make his mark on the world stage. He is a very gifted and classy player and we feel he is the last piece in our jigsaw.”Jacobs, like Shehzad and Rohrer, initially missed out on a spot with one of the six franchises in the draft in June. He captained South African franchise Warriors to their first ever Twenty20 title in 2010-11.”Davy Jacobs is a proven performer in Twenty20 cricket,” Gordon Greenidge, coach of the Red Steel, said. “The fact he can bat anywhere in the top order is great as it provides us with real flexibility and I like the balance of our squad.”He will add steel to the Red Steel dressing room and bring a winning mentality and vast experience to the squad.”The inaugural Caribbean Premier League starts on July 30 in Barbados and concludes on August 24 in Trinidad.

Paul Marsh believes international cricket must be more accommodating to player associations if the sport is serious about eliminating the threat of corruption. Marsh was announced the new executive chairman of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA) this week and takes charge of the organisation at a challenging time. Last month its departing chief executive Tim May lost his position on the ICC cricket committee resulting from a voting process FICA has questioned.Since that vote, both the IPL and the Bangladesh Premier League have been plunged into corruption scandals and the sport’s image has taken a serious hit. Marsh said it was unfortunate that FICA, which represents players associations in all Test-playing countries except India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, no longer had an official voice within the ICC at a time when administrators and players needed to build stronger links than ever.”The thing that I find ironic about it is that right now more than ever, with everything that’s going on in the game, it needs strong player associations,” Marsh told ESPNcricinfo. “The game, if it’s serious about ridding itself of these corrupt practices, should be embracing player associations. The reality is that there’s nobody in the game that has a better relationship with the players. That’s our role here. We have the opportunity to play a very strong leadership role around anti-corruption but those who are running the game have to embrace us in that space.”FICA potentially has a very, very important role in educating the players and individual player associations already take on that role. But we can take a far greater role there. Lord Condon in his report identified that many years ago and if you talk to the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit they say the same thing, that player associations are important to this. Players are increasingly coming to us and reporting things they have seen or approaches that have been made to them.”The lack of player associations in India and Pakistan has limited FICA’s ability to have a truly worldwide influence and that is not a situation Marsh expects will change any time soon. Instead, he believes the organisation must focus its attention on strengthening some of the smaller and less robust player associations that already come under its banner.”To get associations in India and Pakistan has been on the FICA agenda for as long as I have been involved,” Marsh said. “But the reality is you’re not going to get a player association up unless the players want it and they’re going to be prepared to fight for it. Unfortunately the Indian and Pakistan players don’t want it, so we’re wasting our time trying to get them to want something they don’t want.”What we have to do is focus on making sure that FICA and each of the player associations is as strong as they possibly can be, because not one of us as individual player associations has had anything given to us over the journey. We’ve had to fight for everything we get. We have got four very strong player associations at the moment and we need to focus on building up the other three members.”Marsh will take on the FICA position effectively as the group’s figurehead and spokesperson, while also retaining his existing job as chief executive of the Australian Cricketers’ Association. Ian Smith, who has served as legal director of England’s Professional Cricketers’ Association, will become FICA’s chief operating officer.Effectively the two men will share the responsibilities previously handled by May, who stepped down this week after 16 years in player advocacy. Marsh said other immediate priorities for FICA included making Twenty20 leagues more accountable for the non-payment of player wages, which he said had become “a significant issue”. And he said that without an official voice at the ICC table, FICA would have to pursue other methods of making itself heard.”Unless the attitude towards FICA changes we’re going to become more and more vocal around these types of issues,” Marsh said. “What we want is what’s best for the game. We’re not going to just sit back and take the lack of respect and take the refusal to hear our voice lying down. That is not going to happen. We will continue to be strong in voicing our views.”

ScorecardFile photo: Kirk Edwards amassed 190 runs, with 26 fours and a six•WICB

Six centuries dominated the first unofficial Test between Sri Lanka A and West Indies A in St Kitts, which ended in a draw. Both captains dug into the runs on offer as West Indies’ Kirk Edwards fell 10 short of a maiden first-class double-century and Dimuth Karunaratne hit a near run-a-ball century for Sri Lanka to go with his century in the first innings.Karunatne was the first man to three figures after his side won the toss and batted. Finishing with 13 boundaries to his credit, he supported Udara Jayasundera in a 104-run partnership. Left-arm spinner Nikita Miller, whose last two outings for Jamaica fetched match returns of 8 for 67 and 6 for 72, bore the lion’s share of the bowling with 51 overs and picked up six wickets. But allrounder Chaturanga de Silva ensured the foundation laid by the top order was not squandered, producing a solid century, which included three sixes. His 65-run stand with the No.10, Suranga Lakmal took Sri Lanka A to 472 in the first innings.West Indies replied strongly, upping Sri Lanka’s century count by one as Leon Johnson scored his maiden first-class ton. Assad Fudadin and Edwards were the other centurions, who participated in a mammoth 256-run partnership for the second wicket. Between the three of them, 67 boundaries were scored, including six sixes. Offspinner Tharindu Kaushal claimed five of the eight wickets to fall in his 58 overs. Miller’s third first-class fifty prompted West Indies A to declare at 636.With less than a day’s play left, Sri Lanka A held firm, anchored by Karunaratne’s unbeaten century, studded with nine fours and two sixes, which along with his fifty in the first innings earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details Jacques Kallis’ 41 helped steer Kolkata Knight Riders to the target•BCCI

Kolkata Knight Riders kept their 100% record of successfully chasing totals under 120 intact as they triumphed at their second home in Ranchi. Their bowlers were largely responsible for keeping them in the competition, having restricted Royal Challengers to their lowest total in a first innings of an IPL match in India.Through good lengths and variation, they ensured the batsmen would not have to toil as much as Royal Challengers’ troops did. They laboured through the slowest Powerplay in this year’s tournament, with only 22 runs from the first six overs and limped to their slowest century of 2013, off 102 balls. They managed just seven boundaries in their innings, their second lowest count in the tournament’s history.Knight Riders’ selection of Sachithra Senanayake proved a shrewd move on a slow surface, as he and L Balaji made run-scoring difficult upfront. Chesteshwar Pujara was dismissed for 5 as he tried to hit out, but Chris Gayle managed his frustrations well.His only four came from an edge past first slip and he had little respite, besides Ryan ten Doeschate’s sole over, in which Virat Kohli and Gayle took 14 runs of it. Kohli, however, didn’t last long, playing on off Jacques Kallis for 17.Four boundary-less overs followed before Gayle’s vigil was broken. He went forward to defend the first ball of Sunil Narine’s second over, but it turned past the outside edge, and he was stumped with his toe right on the line.Gayle was Narine’s first scalp. Saurabh Tiwary, Ravi Rampaul and Abhimanyu Mithun were the other three which took the West Indian to the top of the wicket-charts with 22 to his name. He tied Royal Challengers up at the end of their innings, after Balaji got rid of a threatening looking AB de Villiers.The South African one-day captain managed a paddle and a loft over extra cover before he was caught behind, trying to tickle the ball fine. Had de Villiers lasted into the last four overs, Royal Challengers may have been able to eye a total over 130, but they had to settle for a below-par 115 for 9.Despite the sluggish surface, they needed a better bowling effort than their attack has seemed capable of producing this season. Ravi Rampaul gave them some hope when he had Manvinder Bisla caught at point off the second ball. He should have accounted for Kallis too, but Mithun badly misjudged the catch at fine leg, running in before realising he had underestimated the strength of the shot.Kallis capitalised on his let off and anchored the chase almost to the end. The required run rate hovered around a run-a-ball throughout, but Royal Challengers could not build any pressure. Gautam Gambhir took three fours off a Mithun over that was peppered with generously short balls, and Murali Kartik conceded boundaries when he tossed it up.Kallis and Manoj Tiwary worked the ball around, and even though both were dismissed at the twilight of the match, they had done enough. Ryan ten Doeschate hit the winning runs to make qualifying for the playoffs an uphill battle for Royal Challengers in their remaining matches.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Royal Challengers Bangalore won the Super OverAB de Villiers’ two sixes in the Super Over arrested an almighty choke•BCCI

It was a match neither team seemed to want to win. Low on quality, it headed towards what looked like a natural result, a Royal Challengers Bangalore victory, for about 33 overs. Out of the other seven, two produced 30 runs for Delhi Daredevils at the end, two were a contest between Morne Morkel and Chris Gayle that the bowler won, and the other three featured an almighty choke from Royal Challengers that resulted in a tie despite a Ravi Rampaul six in the last over when they needed 12.Umesh Yadav nearly won it for Delhi in the Super Over with four yorkers or near-yorkers at the top, which went for three runs, but he missed the length on the last two, and AB de Villiers deposited both of them over deep midwicket for sixes. Royal Challengers, nursing their demons of ties and close matches, called upon Rampaul, who has demons of his own in Super Overs, but he had also bowled a maiden and hit that six over extra cover when it seemed Royal Challengers had seen a ghost and forgotten how to bat.Daredevils had a surprise in store too. Neither Virender Sehwag nor Mahela Jayawardene batted. David Warner found point first ball, and out came Irfan Pathan with two right gloves in hand. The glove changed, he picked up a length ball over square leg for four. Rampaul came back with a yorker, but Irfan pulled out an absolute rabbit by walking down to the fourth ball and ramping it over fine leg for a huge six.With six required off the last two, Rampaul dished out a full toss, and got lucky. Irfan flicked it nicely, but found square leg. Six feet either side, and it would have been over. That bullet bitten, Rampaul bowled full and straight, and bowled out IPL debutant Ben Rohrer.All this sporadic excitement, though, was like an old man out on a pacemaker at times. Except for a blinder of a return catch from R Vinay Kumar, that contest between Morkel and Gayle, and Rampaul’s six, it was all curiously unspectacular. On a flat skiddy pitch with a quick small outfield around it, no Daredevils batsman reached 30, no Royal Challengers Bangalore bowler extracted disconcerting movement or extraordinary fortune, but somehow Daredevils remained subdued throughout their innings to end up with a paltry total by Bangalore standards. Most strikingly, Jayawardene scratched around for 28 off 31.There was some spark to the Daredevils’ start, but it was short-lived. Sehwag and Warner seemed to have set up a good base with 42 off the first five overs, but then Vinay plucked an unbelievable catch when Warner smashed one back at him. In the next over, Sehwag chipped a gentle loosener from Andrew McDonald straight to midwicket. Just like that, Daredevils found themselves in the jail, and couldn’t find a way out.Over after over of steady bowling went by, but Jayawardene could neither find his touch nor get out. Jaydev Unadkat then worked Manprit Juneja over with bouncers, and the latter was eventually caught back for a length ball and holed out to long-on. Rohrer then found deep midwicket with a long hop. Just like that, Daredevils found themselves in solitary confinement.There were periods of mercy for Daredevils. Royal Challengers omitted to appeal on a run-out, gave one more last over to RP Singh, but Daredevils could still muster only 152.Daredevils’ bowling might not be the most rounded for Twenty20 environment, but it sure is exciting. The Powerplay of the chase was all drama. In the first over, Ashish Nehra was denied a plumb lbw of KL Rahul, but he came back to get him a second time and gave him a justified send-off.At the other end, Morkel went hard at Gayle, bowling 145kmph and upwards and short of a length. Gayle was equal to it, putting behind the plays-and-misses, and hitting two sixes off Morkel. Eventually the bowler prevailed with a thick edge flying all the way to third man. That, though, was only a third of the work done for Daredevils.Coming together at 26 for 2 in the fourth over, the other two-thirds turned it on, matching each other shot for shot before Kohli ran away with it when he targeted the left-arm spin of Shahbaz Nadeem in the middle overs. When Kolhi pulled a long hop from Irfan for four in the 14th over, he brought up yet another fifty, and also brought the asking rate down to a run a ball. And the two could have strolled the rest of the way through.When de Villiers was run out at the end of the 16th over, Royal Challengers needed 24 off 24 with seven wickets in hand. Daredevils didn’t do anything spectacular after that, just held their catches and saw Royal Challengers implode. McDonald chipped one back to Nadeem. Arun Karthik ran himself out when he didn’t want to take the third off the last ball of the 18th over because that would mean Kohli would be off strike at the start of the next over. Kohli disagreed.At any rate, Kohli didn’t have the strike, and J Syed Mohammad lobbed one straight to long-on. Kohli drove the next ball inside-out, and found Jayawardene. It was 15 off eight now. Irfan, though, began the next over with a wide half-volley, which Rampaul picked the bones out of. Irfan came back well in the rest of the over, and then almost got his own back at Rampaul in the Super Over, but after a twist or two the match did reach its natural conclusion.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Persistent rain made sure even the toss didn’t take place on the first day of the third Test in Mohali. It began raining around 3am, and continued well into the morning.When it stopped raining, the ground staff went to work on the covers that had puddles of water. The outfield seemed to have drained well, but the covers needed at least a couple of hours of work. However, the drizzle returned shortly, laying to rest any hopes of play.If every thing goes right, the toss will now take place on the second morning and play will start half an hour early on each of the remaining days. The forecast for the remaining days is better, although spells of rain are expected on day two.India, who lead the series 2-0, did not name their XI but Australia confirmed their line-up, with Matthew Wade ruled out due to his ankle injury and Glenn Maxwell made 12th man. That meant Brad Haddin was included for his first Test in more than a year, while Steven Smith was also named for the first time since the 2010-11 Ashes. The decision to rule four players out due to disciplinary issues meant Australia had only 12 men to choose from, and they recalled the offspinner Nathan Lyon to bowl alongside the left-armer Xavier Doherty.