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At the end of it all, MS Dhoni’s smile was intact. India had lost the third Test, their third in three weeks by a massive margin; England had grabbed the No.1 Test ranking by inflicting on India their largest margin of defeat since the turn of the millennium; and Dhoni himself had suffered his first series loss as captain. Yet he kept his emotions in check. With a gentle smile he ventured into the inquest, launched by a media contingent that sounded more concerned than him about India’s drop to No.2 and the threat of slipping further in the event of a loss at The Oval in the next Test.”The series never really went our way,” Dhoni said. “If you see, most of the sessions were won by them. If you divide the Tests into small sessions, more often than not we were outplayed in both the bowling and batting departments.”India have so far won just six sessions: two at Lord’s and four at Trent Bridge. At Edgbaston, the gulf between the two sides was further exposed when the India batsmen failed to total 500 runs in two innings, playing an aggregate of 117.5 overs. Alastair Cook, the Man of the Match, alone played a ball short of 91 overs. If England’s metronomic bowling attack embarrassed the world’s best batting order, India’s tired bowlers struggled miserably, fetching just seven wickets in this Test.”You have to be at your best when you are playing top nations. Our batting department didn’t click the way it should have. We were not able to put par-plus runs on the board,” Dhoni said of the batting failure. He was India’s best batsman in the Test and the only one to score a half-century in each innings. In contrast, England had two centurions and four others who went past the 50-mark.

Why didn’t Dravid opt for a review?
According to Dhoni, Dravid was unaware that the bat hit his shoelace and not the ball. Though Dravid, for a moment, was not sure if he had actually nicked it, he walked off as soon Simon Taufel upheld England’s appeal. “If you see the chain of events that happened, it is very rare that the batsman hits the lace of the boot and it is at the exact time when the ball passes. Rahul wasn’t 100% sure about whether he nicked it or not. Maybe now he thinks he should have taken the review but the fact is he didn’t and it’s gone now,” Dhoni said.

Praveen doubtful for fourth Test
There is no definite word on Praveen Kumar’s right thumb, which was hit by a James Anderson delivery. Praveen, India’s highest wicket-taker in the series so far with 15 victims, was hit off the fourth ball he faced and immediately dropped his bat and backed off screeching in pain. Dhoni said the team would monitor the injury over the next few days. “I haven’t got any update from the physio. He got hit on the thumb, his bowling thumb. I don’t know how critical it is but let’s hope for the best.”

After India had been bundled out for 224 on the first day, Duncan Fletcher said, somewhat surprisingly, he had never witnessed such “swinging and seaming” conditions in England. Eyebrows rolled immediately, and further proof of Fletcher’s remarkable statement was highlighted when Tim Bresnan claimed the conditions were hardly in favour of bowlers unlike in Nottingham during the second Test. If anything, India have failed to withstand the pressure mounted by a bowling attack that has slipped into accuracy mode without any warm-up balls or spells. A perfect example has been James Anderson so often picking up a wicket almost immediately into his opening spells.”I can’t exactly pinpoint the reason like this is what went wrong because if it was so easy then we would have fixed it,” Dhoni said of his batsmen’s woes against swing.Both Dhoni and Fletcher have strongly defended their batsmen, but the view that it’s the right time to blood youngsters in the middle order and look to the future is gaining momentum. Of the top six in the Indian batting order only Rahul Dravid has been consistent and is the lone centurion with determined hundreds in the first two Tests. Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman have scored 159 and 156 runs respectively. Suresh Raina excelled in the second innings at Lord’s but has disappointed thereafter. India have not been able to get good starts, their best opening alliance being 63, between Gautam Gambhir and Abhinav Mukund in the first innings at Lord’s.MS Dhoni was part of India’s batting failure in the first two Tests but stepped up at Edgbaston•Getty Images

Asked if the spotlight was now on the seniors, Dhoni cast aside doubts of benching or forcing any of the big three to retire. “Six months back also they were part of the side. By losing one series we shouldn’t get critical about them,” Dhoni said, reminding the media that the same batsmen were successful till the last Test series India played in South Africa. “What you need is youngsters to come in and score runs and displace someone at the top. I think this is the best team that we had. If you take out the injury aspect, I believe this was the best team selected. And in Test cricket age doesn’t really matter, it’s the performance that matters.”Dhoni also defended his bowling attack, whose inability to take 20 wickets in a match has been questioned time and again in the absence of the injured Zaheer Khan. “The pressure kept mounting on us. Once you start the series and if you are not able to get the opposition out and then you have one bowler less, it keeps mounting as the series progresses. Not to forget England, they are a very good side and throughout the series they have done well.”Moving on, do India now have the resilience to stand up, having been flattened thrice to the mat? “Why not?,” Dhoni shot back. “We are very optimistic about it. We need to forget about the last three games in the sense you know, try to make the most out of the fourth one. Take it as a one-Test series, so that you don’t have the burden of the last three Test matches you have played.”

Trevor Bayliss, the former Sri Lanka coach, has nominated Ryan Harris as the Australian bowler most likely to trouble a formidable home batting line-up during next month’s Test series in the island nation.Harris is one of numerous Australian players waiting nervously to discover whether they will be chosen in the first Test squad to be led by the new captain Michael Clarke, after the Australia A tour of Zimbabwe clouded the selectors’ options almost as much as it shed light on them. The squad will be announced on Tuesday morning.Told earlier this year that he was being considered as more of a Test match bowler, Harris, 31, was omitted from the limited-overs squad for the Sri Lanka tour despite showing he had returned to full fitness during the Indian Premier League. Bayliss said Harris’ combination of speed, skid and movement both ways would make him the sort of bowler capable of troubling the likes of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene.”From a pace point of view someone like Ryan Harris could be dangerous,” Bayliss told ESPNcricinfo. “He is someone who bustles in, a bit quicker than what you think, but bowls a fairly consistent line and length, but nips the ball about and can nip it about off the seam and through the air a bit.”Someone like that on their wickets over there … early on with those wickets you get a little bit of swing and a little bit of seam, and someone who maybe skids onto the bat a bit quicker than what you think, and maybe nipping it back in, I think he could do well. [He is] someone who can bowl reverse swing as well when the ball is older.”Beyond Harris, the questions surrounding the Australian attack are many and varied. Ben Hilfenhaus and Peter Siddle, the opening bowlers for much of the Ashes last summer, were conspicuously toothless with the new ball in Zimbabwe. Across the two-day and first-class portions of the tour, not once was either able to claim a wicket in their first spells to the top order.The left-armer Mitchell Starc fared better, while Trent Copeland, another possible selection, bowled long spells but tended to struggle for wickets. Of the touring spin bowlers Michael Beer and Jason Krejza both had their moments of success counter-balanced by the odd expensive spell. Nathan Hauritz will not be considered for reasons of fitness, while Steve Smith’s value as a Test match slow bowler is yet to be proven.”From a spin point of view it depends a little on who they pick, most of them unless it is Nathan Hauritz, the rest of the guys haven’t had a lot of experience in the subcontinent,” said Bayliss. “So how they handle the pressure of having to bowl against batters who have been brought up on spin-friendly wickets, how they go about their craft under the pressure the Sri Lankan batters will undoubtedly put on Australia’s spinners.”It’s not going to be easy, there are going to be some difficult times trying to get through the Sri Lankan batting order. You’ve got seven guys in the likely batting order to whom they’re going to have to bowl very well and there’s going to be some hard work to get through those seven.”Sangakkara and Jayawardene are the main stumbling blocks, and if you can get those two out of the way, it puts a lot of pressure on the rest of the batting order. You can’t take the rest of the guys lightly, but it does put a little bit of extra pressure on the rest of the guys when the two best players don’t score any.”Australia’s batting appears a little more settled, as Phillip Hughes secured his place alongside Shane Watson by maintaining a rich vein of form that began in the closing weeks of the Australian domestic season. Usman Khawaja’s lack of runs in Zimbabwe should not preclude his inclusion, and Shaun Marsh seems likely to stay on in reserve beyond the limited-overs matches.Australia’s batsmen have shown fallibility against quality bowling in recent times, and Bayliss said they would need to be aggressive in order to avoid becoming tangled in the web of the local spinners Rangana Herath, Suraj Randiv and Ajantha Mendis.”In the Ashes last summer it was more about pace bowlers, but in Sri Lanka it will be more about spin, and Australia’s batting against spin,” Bayliss said. “Against spin you’ve got to be a bit more proactive, and try to put the pressure back onto the bowler, so it’ll be interesting to see how Australia’s batsmen go about facing the Sri Lankan spinners.”Possible squad Michael Clarke (capt), Shane Watson (vice-capt), Phillip Hughes, Usman Khawaja, Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey, Shaun Marsh, Brad Haddin (wk), Steve Smith, Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Michael Beer or Jason Krejza, Mitchell Starc.

The three Pakistan players accused of spot-fixing in the Lord’s Test got off lightly, according to the majority of players polled in a recent survey. The Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA) has revealed the results of its player survey, and 77% of respondents believed the penalties handed to the Pakistan trio were too lenient.An ICC tribunal found Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif guilty of orchestrating deliberate pre-planned no-balls during the Test against England last August, and they received bans ranging from five to ten years. All three men could be free to play officially-sanctioned cricket again in five years, due to part of the penalties for Asif and Butt involving suspended sentences. None of the 45 players surveyed believed the penalties were too harsh, while 23% considered the bans “fair”.The process by which the three Pakistanis were punished was more complex than a simple ICC edict. Under the anti-corruption code, the decision must be deliberated over by an independent tribunal, with the verdict and penalties handed down from those arbiters. Provisions for far harsher punishments are included in the code.Although the ICC has achieved its goal of making players aware of the Anti-Corruption Code – 100% of players said they were given education on the code before the World Cup – it’s not all good news for the game’s governing body. While 100% of players said they would report any suspicious approach they received, 20% did not have confidence in the ICC’s anti-corruption unit treating that information confidentially.Two-thirds of the players said they would be more comfortable reporting any approach to their team manager than to the anti-corruption unit, despite their obligation to do so. Tim May, the chief executive of FICA, said the responses from the players surveyed was an indication that they wanted a tougher stance on corruption.”This sends a strong signal to stakeholders that the vast number of players want significant penalties to be invoked against those who are found guilty of serious corruption offences,” May said.FICA co-ordinates the activities of players’ associations in seven countries: Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh. Notably, Pakistan and India are the two major Test-playing nations – along with Zimbabwe – who are not affiliated with FICA.In addition to being found guilty of spot-fixing by the ICC, Butt, Asif and Amir are now facing criminal charges in the UK. Under Britain’s Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, penalties of up to seven years in prison can be meted out for accepting corrupt payments. The trio also face charges under the Gambling Act 2005.The players were questioned by Scotland Yard detectives after the tabloid newspaper made accusations that they had orchestrated deliberate no-balls in the Lord’s Test.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsEoin Morgan opened up late, but Kochi’s bowlers held their nerve to finish on the winning side•AFP

A disciplined performance in the field and an explosive 35 off 19 balls from Brad Hodge helped Kochi Tuskers overcome Kolkata Knight Riders in the last match at the Nehru Stadium this IPL season.Hodge’s last over blitz, in which he took 21 runs off countryman Brett Lee, proved to be the difference between the two sides, as Kochi defended 156 by 17 runs. In the chase, RP Singh and Sreesanth failed to get the same kind of movement that Brett Lee extracted early in the Kochi innings. Jacques Kallis and Eoin Morgan didn’t have to take many risks early on as there were many poor deliveries that were smacked to the boundary. In the first three overs, the bulk of the short and wide ones came from RP Singh.R Vinay Kumar and Prasanth Parameswaran pulled back the chase before it raged out of control with a selection of back of a length deliveries that proved difficult to get away. Although they kept the boundaries down, they didn’t trouble the batsmen much and failed to get a breakthrough until after the halfway stage, when Kolkata were well set. Kallis was the senior partner and easily outscored Morgan in that phase. Seven times in the first ten overs Kallis stole the strike at the end of the over.Just as Kallis looked as though he had grown roots, Raiphi Gomez rattled Kolkata with a double strike in his second over. He bowled Kallis with a legcutter and had Gautam Gambhir caught in the covers off consecutive balls, which left Morgan to assume the senior role. Manoj Tiwary could not last long, and Yusuf Pathan was expected to counterattack, but he and Morgan were frustrated by Gomez’s variations and Parameswaran’s accurate fuller deliveries. Sreesanth let the noose loosen, giving Morgan back-to-back boundaries but Vinay Kumar was on hand to tighten it. Confusions between Morgan and Yusuf mounted in Vinay’s last over, and Morgan was run out when both batsmen ended up at the wicketkeeper’s end.It brought Brett Lee to the crease, in poetic justice for the last over he bowled, which went for 21. There were 25 to get off the last over of Kolkata’s innings. Lee was run-out and the task proved too steep.Kochi’s innings was anchored by a third-wicket partnership between Mahela Jayawardene and Michael Klinger before being given momentum at the death by Hodge. It didn’t look as though Kochi would get over the 150-run mark, especially after the way things started. Lee’s first over was a whole bag of peaches. He got impressive away movement and started the innings with a maiden.Some success seemed inevitable after the start Kolkata got and it came from Jaidev Unadkat, although he hardly deserved it. He banged one in, too short and too wide outside off that Brendon McCullum chased and his fine edge nestled in Kallis’ hands at slip.Parthiv Patel came in at No. 3 and opened his account with two stunning boundaries. He looked energetic and confident in his strokeplay and dealt with Unadkat’s bouncer and the introduction of spin, in the form of Iqbal Abdulla, with relative ease. Surprisingly, it was the short ball that undid him, when he charged down the track and miscued a pull shot to midwicket.The stage was set for Jayawardene to play an innings of authority and, with Klinger at the other end, he did exactly that. They played creative cricket, managing a boundary off five of the seven overs they were together for and pushed each other to take singles before Klinger holed out. When Abdulla got the wicket of Ravindra Jadeja for eight, Kochi were being pegged back and some impetus was needed.The floodgates were opened with Jayawardene’s six over long leg at the start of the 17th over and Kochi put on 54 runs in the final four overs, with Hodge’s fireworks yielding almost half of those.