There is quaint irony in the fact that in a tournament based on the shortest format of cricket, two of the main draws are the oldest players playing the sport. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, both pushing 41, will be seen for the last time in T20s which gives the Champions League a dimension and romance of its own.

On a news intensive Friday — what with Narendra Modi being officially named BJP’s prime ministerial candidate amidst much melodrama and death sentences being pronounced for the four guilty of raping the Delhi ‘Braveheart’ — punishments doled out to those involved in match-fixing in the IPL last season became an also-ran story.

What would you rather have, Sachin Tendulkar playing his 200th Test versus South Africa at Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban, or the West Indies at Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata or wherever else?

Controversy over the highest sports honour in the country, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, was protracted and unsavoury but not without some pathos too.

Watching Saina Nehwal play P.V. Sindhu in the opening leg of the Indian Badminton League in Delhi was one of the sporting highlights for me last week.

Parvez Rasool, who finally got to play a match for India A (and made a decent contribution in the win against South Africa A), would be mighty relieved though still a trifle confused.

For avid BCCI watchers, Friday’s developments would have put them on a sticky wicket, throwing up many questions and conundrums.

Sachin Tendulkar or Dhyan Chand, who deserves the Bharat Ratna first?

Two years back when I interviewed Rakeysh Om-prakash Mehra for a TV channel he had just about started work on Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. He wouldn’t reveal much except to say “wait and see”. I was unsure of what the film on a legendary athlete, still alive, would turn out to be.

It’s been a crazy Wimbledon Championships this year what with several seeds being toppled already. Rafael Nadal fell in the first round, Maria Sharapova and Roger Federer in the second on a calamitous Wednesday that had aficionados diving into tennis history to find out whether there had ever been such a day.