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Scorecard

Last night was the mid-season meeting for Middlesex members and they would certainly have had plenty to moan about after their side’s feeble effort in the first innings against Lancashire. While the team will still lose sometime before lunch tomorrow, at least centuries from Ed Smith and Scott Styris showed some backbone and pushed this match into a fourth day that had appeared unlikely.Smith’s century was his second of the season and will have brought welcome relief for a player who has become more acquainted with single figure scores in recent matches. However, he lived a charmed life and was put down on 96 when Kyle Hogg dropped a sitter at mid-on off Brad Hodge as Smith got a leading edge. He also flirted with Lancashire’s deep-set field on the legside with a number of his pulls on just falling short of the fielders.Hogg’s drop came on a day when, on a rare occasion this summer, things didn’t go Lancashire’s way. At the start of the morning they needed to replace Luke Sutton with the second team wicketkeeper, Gareth Cross, after Sutton sustained a broken thumb on the second day. He had been struck by Mohammad Ali during his 72, but continued to bat and kept throughout Middlesex’s first innings and the start of the follow-on. However, overnight the injury was assessed – via a trip back to Manchester – and Sutton is expected to be out for around a month, which rules him out of the Twenty20 zonal round.For most of the morning session Cross and the rest of the fielders had watched Smith and the nightwatchman Chris Peploe. The bowling was not as impressive as the first innings and Smith was quick onto anything loose. Peploe showed an admirable defence although he could have been dislodged on 18 if Iain Sutcliffe had not been on his heels at short-leg.It took the introduction of Hodge to break a stand of 127 when People slogged him straight to mid-on in his opening over. Hodge should have had Smith, too, but the century arrived off 136 balls. After lunch, though, Lancashire appeared to have made the killer breakthroughs. Smith was well held at mid-on by Cork then Owais Shah fell to a stunning reflex effort by Sutcliffe, at short-leg, who clung onto half-volley that Shah clipped cleanly off his toes.

The collapse continued as Eoin Morgan was bowled round his legs by Gary Keedy then Paul Weekes was snapped up at silly point off the face of the bat. Keedy was rewarded for perseverance although he never actually bowled that well; too dragging the ball short and being easily dispatched.Styris found a stubborn partner in David Nash, who has made himself very hard to drop after two gusty innings, and they added 134 in nearly two hours as the bowlers tired. Nash survived a huge appeal against Keedy first ball, but Mark Chilton had to use seven different options to try and remove him. It took the second new ball, and Cork running on empty, to do the job as Nash edged a flashing cut to Cross, after Tom Smith had added to the fielding blunders by dropping him on 27 at second slip.Styris crossed to his first ton of the season off 113 balls and continued to play his shots with the bowlers for company. Chilton spilled him at point on 121 but he was finally removed by Cork during a commendable show of stamina on a flat pitch. Cork ended with a worthy four-wicket haul, and eight in the match, when he bounced out Mohammad Ali in the second over.Middlesex’s extra fight means Lancashire couldn’t quite secure the day off they would have liked ahead of their C&G clash against Warwickshire, but by lunchtime tomorrow they will have consolidated their position at the top of the table as the Championship takes its Twenty20 break.

Virat Kohli is the highest-paid cricketer in the IPL, according to salary figures released by the league on Friday.While Kohli will cost his franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore Rs 12.5 crore (approximately USD 1.89 million) from their salary purse, they will actually pay him Rs 15 crore (USD 2.26 million). MS Dhoni, for long believed to be the most expensive IPL cricketer, will be paid USD 1.89 million, which is equal to his purse deduction, by the Pune franchise. Pune secured Dhoni in a draft of players who were part of the suspended Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals franchises.Apart from Royal Challengers, who are paying Kohli and Chris Gayle more than the purse deduction, Mumbai Indians are paying Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga and Ambati Rayudu more than the purse deduction they result in.However, contrary to the general perception that quite a few players used to get paid much more than the official purse deduction, quite a few have actually taken big cuts. Manan Vohra, retained by Kings XI Punjab, will get less than 10% of his Rs 4 crore (USD 600,000) purse deduction. Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir and David Miller are among those getting paid less than the purse deduction they are responsible for.Each franchise is required to spend a minimum of Rs 40 crore (USD 6 million) but not more than Rs 66 crore (USD 9.96 million) on their squad. However, when the franchise retains players, the purse-deduction slots are what are considered for the purpose of calculation of what it can and should spend.Kings XI are thus keen on saving money; after negotiating the salary with Vohra, they can actually spend far less than USD 600,000 on him. However, they will still lose USD 600,000 from their purse ahead of the auction. Royal Challengers, on the other hand, don’t seem to mind spending extra.In the case of former Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals players, though, the new franchises didn’t have any room to negotiate. The BCCI had assured the players left without teams but drafted by the two new teams they would be paid the same amount as they were earning earlier. So while Ravindra Jadeja might take away Rs 9.5 crore (USD 1.43 million) from Rajkot’s purse, he will actually get only Rs 5.5 crore (USD 0.83 million).

Mike Brearley, the former England captain, will serve as the next president of MCC. His one-year term of office will begin on October 1 and he will replace Doug Insole, who made the announcement during MCC’s AGM on Wednesday afternoon at Lord’s.Brearley captained England in 31 of his 39 Tests, including the 1981 Ashes series, and overall won 18 matches while in charge. He also played 25 ODIs and led England in the 1979 World Cup final at Lord’s.His first spell leading England was between 1977 and 1979-80 when he won acclaim for his captaincy even though his batting was often criticised, and his Test average of 22.88 showed that he was not good enough to hold his own as a batsman. But after Ian Botham failed as his successor, he returned in 1981 with England trailing to Australia and guided his side to a remarkable 3-1 series win before retiring again.His first-class career spanned two decades and he led Middlesex for 12 seasons – at county level he was far more effective, as an average of almost 38 shows. He turned Middlesex from perennial underachievers into the best team in the land, leading them to three Championships (plus one that was shared) and two Gillette Cups.Brearley wrote three books about Ashes series he played in, and on retiring penned The Art of Captaincy, considered the definite work on the subject. He was named one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 1977 and a year later was awarded an OBE for his services to cricket. In 1983 he became an Honorary Life Member of MCC.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Persistent rain washed out the fifth day too•BCCI

The ninth-shortest, non-abandoned Test ended just before noon on the fifth day, with wet conditions and intermittent drizzle washing out a fourth day in a row. Only one Test in India has had fewer overs bowled than the 81 here. In that time, India put South Africa in, and their spinners bowled the visitors out for 214 before Shikhar Dhawan followed up his pair in Mohali with 45 not out. Playing his 100th Test, AB de Villiers scored 85, showing to his team-mates how to play spin in India.India led the series 1-0. The third Test is to begin in Nagpur on November 25.

Scorecard andball-by-ball details
How theywere out