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Wimbledon will be in its second week when this appears, but I write on its eve. I look forward to it more than I have any cricket series in the last year. Or anything else in the next few months, unless Australia agree to play Tests here in October. Then, too, I dread the pitches, the empty stands.I found it mildly disturbing that my unquestionable, indisputable, all-time number one sport no longer occupied a pedestal. I never had to consider the matter before. Cricket wasnt selected as a choice, it was in our blood, in our air, and it absorbed us as osmotically as we absorbed it. I wondered if the realignment of affection had something to do with the fact that I had been playing tennis for the last year. I also read relatively little tennis press. I could approach it in a manner closest to childlike fascination, drawing directly from Sunday-morning knocking to the glory of the gods on the screen.But that didnt fully account for it; playing tennis, or football, or basketball as a teenager, I never felt the intimacy I did with cricket.More likely was that tennis provided better what cricket once did, an immersion. At Roland Garros the cameras always lingered. On the players taking the court, taking their seats, warming-up, the Parisian crowd, the French skies, the world of tennis and its players and its environment, subtly and consummately relayed without gimmicks of propaganda. As much as for the actual tennis, I liked leaving Roland Garros on through the evenings for the beauty of the clay courts and the soothing coverage.In his review of Andre Agassis autobiography in the New York Review of Books, Michael Kimmelman wrote that players shape points by moving the ball around the court to make it arch and zig, devising patterns that from a spectators perch map crisscrossing lines. The fans pleasure, after a particularly good exchange of shots, stems from redrawing those lines as a memory, every point, like every creative mark on a page with a pencil, being slightly different. Within sameness, there is variety, artists have proved. Athletes have, too.Kimmelman is probably talking about watching live, but television coverage of tennis, like the restrained appreciation of a tennis crowd, complements perfectly this ephemeral, elusive marvel of the tennis point.A good sports broadcast ought to always bring out the essence of the sport. I remember Channel 4s coverage of Indias England tour in 2002, able to capture crickets expansive langour as well as its urgent obsession with tactics and trends and its family-soapish quibbling over decisions made by the captains or umpires. Cricket on Indian television is now unendurable. The Neo Sports telecasts dont have the mid-over advertisements of Sony Maxs IPL telecasts, but Neo makes up with the length and volume of its breaks between overs and every minor stoppage. The logic of a passage of play is so utterly damaged as to feel dismantled.Cricket, with its huge capacity for roles, needs all the more latitude to play out its proper drama. It isnt, like tennis, a straightforward rivalry. Crickets rivalries include a team versus another, a team versus an individual, an individual versus an individual, and in that, a bowler against an opposition batsman, a bowler against an opposition bowler, bowling or batting partners of the same team versus one another, a captain versus a captain, sometimes a captain versus one of his own team-mates.We watch sport to see the response of human beings under forceful pressure. The tennis rally is a conversation. Its truest thrills are the moments when the balance of power shifts, like dialogues in old films. Crickets exchange is an interrogation. There is pathos in a dismissal that I think has no parallel in sport. But for the interrogation to feel significant, one needs good pitches and good bowling attacks. It is unrevealing when the interrogated run the show like ringmasters, as they do these days.At times tennis has out-cricketed cricket. I mean, of course, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in exquisite counterattacking symphony at Wimbledon two years ago. With its seven-hour span, its rain breaks, and subsequent influence of weather and intervals, its all-white attire - Fed swan-like, Rafa like a punished Dennis the Menace - it recalled a day of Test cricket. In fact, it was the most exhausting days Test cricket since Sydney 2008.I envy tennis - and I use tennis here as an illustrative example. In the four grand slams, the ATP tour finals, the nine ATP masters events, one can be assured of a minimum level of excellence. This no longer holds true for cricket. The last two years have been the least inspiring I have seen in the last two decades. Perhaps that is a cyclical thing. More worrying is the confusion among cricket followers. Tests are hardly watched. Nobody is sure what form one-dayers ought to take. If Twenty20 proliferates at this rate, I fear it will stale faster than one-day cricket did.I have no faith in the administrators. I only hold on to the hope that, as it sometimes happens, half a dozen players of such calibre arrive into the world game that no matter how awful the pitches, the calendar, the coverage, they cannot help but illuminate for us the essential wonder of the sport, à la Fed and Rafa.PS The signs are everywhere! There was a three-day match at Wimbledon. Theyve been beaming parts of the tournament on Star Cricket.Russell Westbrook Jersey . -- Vincent Lecavalier got everything but the desired result in his return to Tampa Bay. Deonte Burton Thunder Jersey . Belfort (24-10) needed just 77 seconds to down Henderson in the headlining bout of Saturdays "UFC Fight Night: Belfort vs. Henderson" event at Goiania Arena in Goiania, Brazil. The fight served as a rematch of the pairs 2006 meeting, which Henderson won by decision. https://www.thunderrookiesshop.com/Ray-Allen-City-Edition-Jersey/ . Howard Ganz, an MLB lawyer, said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos that Rodriguezs claims do not come "remotely close" to what is needed to overturn an arbitration decision in federal court. Darius Bazley Jersey . MORITZ, Switzerland -- Fog prevented downhill racers from getting their Olympic dress rehearsal. Luguentz Dort Jersey . Shot outdoors against the stunning backdrop of Banff, Alta., the networks 30-minute original production airs tonight at 8pm et/5pm pt on TSN2. The four All-Star teams will play for $100,000 in prize money during TSNs annual skins game, airing live this weekend on TSN from The Fenlands Banff Recreation Centre.Seamer Kasun Rajitha has been named in Sri Lankas squad for the two T20s against Australia, while allrounders Thisara Perera and Milinda Siriwardana, batsman Chamara Kapugedara, and spinner Sachithra Senanayake, have also all been recalled. Among the significant omissions were batsmen Danushka Gunathilaka and Niroshan Dickwella, and allrounder Ramith Rambukwella.Spin-bowling allrounder Sachith Pathirana found a place in the squad, thanks in part to his encouraging run in the last two ODIs against Australia. Left-arm spinner Amila Aponso, who had shone in the first three matches of that series, was overlooked in this format.Dinesh Chandimal will lead the team, taking the reins from Angelo Mathews who is unavailable due to a calf tear. The series is also Tillakaratne Dilshans final outing in international cricket.Rajitha had debuted in the bilateral T20 series against India in February. He had takenn 3 for 29 on a Pune greentop in his first match, but conceded 45 and went wicketless in the next game.ddddddddddddHe and Suranga Lakmal were the only specialist seamers in the squad, with Nuwan Kulasekara overlooked once more.Senanayake was the only specialist spinner, but in Pathirana, Siriwardana, Seekkuge Prasanna, Dilshan and Dhananjaya de Silva, Chandimal has plenty of slow-bowling options to call upon.The first T20 is set to be played in Pallekele on Tuesday, and the second at Khettarama on Friday.T20 squad: Dinesh Chandimal (capt.), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kusal Perera, Dananjaya de Silva, Chamara Kapugedara, Milinda Siriwardana, Kusal Mendis, Seekkuge Prasanna, Sachithra Senanayake, Suranga Lakmal, Thisara Perera, Sachith Pathirana, Kasun Rajitha, Dasun Shanaka. ' ' '