-- notably, athletes who trained in other count

Eleven oclock on a bright, slightly sticky Saturday morning in Manchester. Mohammad Amir runs in from the Statham End and bowls to Joe Root, who is 141 not out. The ball is on a good length but wide of the off stump. Root plays no shot and it passes to Sarfraz Ahmed behind the stumps.And so another day in the grass arena has begun. One ball has been bowled and there are scheduled to be roughly 539 more; or a minimum of 1617 pieces of action if we include the participation of bowler, batsmen and fielder. Some will be faithfully recorded and never mentioned again; others, the dismissal of Ben Stokes, for example, will be reviewed and scrutinised for, perhaps, five minutes.I wouldnt care if it was another sport but cricket takes up so much of the day. With these words the partner of even a club player explains why things arent working. Yet for many of its supporters the length of a first-class cricket match is the essence of its attraction. They like the slow accretion of events and the way time imposes its demands. They enjoy their T20 matches - this isnt an either/or dilemma - but they appreciate a format in which a cricketers endurance and mental strength are examined and in which batting for ten hours receives its due reward. It is, for them, truly a ball-by-ball game in which progress can be close to invisible.And so they enjoyed Roots 618-minute innings and his Jesuitical quest for absolution after his transgressions at Lords. Successful Test batsmen are defined by their ability to go on. For them, a century is a junction not a terminus. So it is with Root and it was curious how his watchfulness in facing the Pakistan bowlers in that first session was matched by that of most spectators as they, in their turn, watched the way he began again.For most people on earth, the idea of being watched as they work is inimical; for sportsmen it is essential. And the symbiosis between the crowd and cricketers repays its own close attention. We watch the watchers watching the watched. The applause that greeted Chris Woakess first fours - a cut, a cover-drive, a square-drive - were almost celebratory, as if the good times had begun to roll and another drink was, indeed, the order of the day.Root, though, continued to wear a hair-shirt and we were 16 overs into the morning before he found the boundary courtesy of an edge and Younis Khans dropped catch at slip. He scored 44 runs in that first, exploratory session and only after tea did he bat as if truly liberated. By then, of course, there were beer snakes and fancy dress; some spectators may have watched the cricket a little less closely than they had in the morning. Stokes and Jonny Bairstow played trampling innings on tired fielders, hoping that weight of runs would earn early wickets. There was less intensity but more fiesta; summer in full, good-humoured riot.Then the declaration and a re-cranking of tension. A new guttural as James Anderson ran in from the Pavilion End. Earlier in the day Andersons team-mates, suddenly spectators themselves, had watched from one of the pavilion balconies. But it was not the local hero who made the breakthroughs. That honour fell in large measure to Woakes, whose three wickets were greeted with fresh roars as spectators scraped their plate in the last hour of the day.6.25 on Saturday and the air is a little fresher, the clouds higher. Stokes runs in from the Statham End and bowls to Shan Masood. The ball is on the off stump and the batsman plays it defensively and safely. There is a slightly subdued gasp from the crowd as if the air had been released from a huge balloon. Then ringing applause for the England players as they return to their dressing-room.For Woakes this has been another fine day; his shares on crickets stock-market have risen. He has masqueraded as a nightwatchman and reinforced his position as a potent strike bowler at a time when England are not short of them. As the crowd disperses, many are talking about how his bowling has helped make their day memorable.Within fifteen minutes Old Trafford is almost deserted and a few minutes later Pakistans players, rucksacks on their backs, are returning to their coach, trooping over the outfield like blue-uniformed trekkers.And so it ends, this gentle, fierce ticking down of 540 pieces of action, the shape of it all collaborative, confrontational, intense. If you rush, youll never get anywhere, said the man on the gate this morning. Bart Starr Super Bowl Jersey . -- Matt Rupert scored once in regulation and again in the shootout as the London Knights extended their win streak to nine games by defeating the Owen Sound Attack 4-3 on Friday in Ontario Hockey League action. Ray Nitschke Super Bowl Jersey . Rousey will put her perfect 8-0 record and hardware on the line against another undefeated fighter, 7-0 Sara McMann in the main event of UFC 170, which will be held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas Nevada on February 22nd. http://www.packersonlineteamstore.com/paul-hornung-youth-jersey.html .C. -- When North Carolina freshman Ryan Switzer reported to training camp in August he was a little miffed to learn he was third on the depth chart at punt returner. Adrian Amos Super Bowl Jersey . Jeff Green scored 13 points and Kris Humphries 12 for the Celtics, who nearly blew an 18-point, second-half lead. Sullingers 20-20 was the first by a Celtics player since Kevin Garnetts first game in Boston in 2007. Garnett was dealt -- along with Paul Pierce -- to Brooklyn during the off-season. Blake Martinez Super Bowl Jersey . Perez, 35, posted a 1-2 record with a 3.69 earned-run average in 19 relief appearances last season. His season ended Aug. 9 due to a torn ligament in his left elbow. Perez joins infielder Andy LaRoche and catcher Mike Nickeas with minor-league agreements for 2014 that include invitations to attend spring training. A scathing report outlining a state-sanctioned doping system in Russia prompted immediate calls for the nations entire team to be sidelined from the Summer Games, raising the possibility that the Olympics could go on without a sports superpower for the first time since the 1980s.The investigation released Monday confirmed a scheme run out of the anti-doping lab in Moscow that ensnared 28 summer and winter sports, from track to snowboarding to table tennis. It lasted at least four years and involved at least 312 positive tests that went unreported at the behest of higher-ups in the countrys sports ministry.A mind-blowing level of corruption within both Russian sport and government, said Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.The World Anti-Doping Agency swiftly called for the International Olympic Committee to consider a full ban of the Russian team from the Summer Olympics, which start Aug. 5 in Rio de Janiero. IOC president Thomas Bach said the committee wouldnt hesitate to apply the toughest sanctions available.The IOC executive board will meet Tuesday to begin sorting through options.Its no sure thing the Russians will receive a blanket ban. Its a decision filled with political ramifications that involve a key Olympic country. It puts the IOC in the position of ruling against against one of its biggest supporters, a nation that spent more than $50 billion hosting the Winter Games in Sochi just two years ago. Not since the back-to-back boycotts by the United States in 1980, then the Soviet Union in 1984, have the Olympics been contested without one of its biggest players.Bach has frequently spoken about the fine line between collective responsibility and individual justice. And for every anti-doping agency and athlete group calling for a full ban, theres seemingly another sports organization or leader urging restraint.The right to participate at the games cannot be stolen from an athlete, who has duly qualified and has not been found guilty of doping, said Bruno Grandi, president of gymnastics international federation. Blanket bans have never been and will never be just.Gymnastics was not among the sports listed in the report. Wrestling, meanwhile, accounted for 28 of the 312 unreported positives. The head of that international federation, Nenad Lalovic of Serbia, told The Associated Press we will absolutely follow the decisions of the IOC.But in making decisions about Russias team as a whole, the IOC could put onus on the international sports federations to determine the penalties.In the ongoing case involving Russias track team, it was that sports federation, the IAAF, that ultimately banned the team from the Olympics. But 68 Russian track-and-field athletes are appealing this week to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to compete in Rio, with a decision due Thursday. In a move that accentuates how complicated the matter can become, the IOC has said there is no contingency for a large group of Russians competing under a neutral flag -- that Russians should compete for the Russian team if theyre allowed in.Mondays report, commissioned by WADA and written by arbitrator Richard McLaren, said allegations made by Moscows former anti-doping lab director about sample switching at the Sochi Olympics went much as described in a New York Times story in May. That program involved dark-of-night bottle tampering in order to switch dirty samples with clean ones; it prevented Russian athletes, including more than a dozen medal winners, from testing positive.ddddddddddddBut McLaren said the bottle tampering in Sochi was a one-shot deal. Meanwhile, he described tactics he labeled disappearing positive methodology that began in 2011, shortly after Russias disappointing performance at the Vancouver Olympics. It included the 2013 track world championships in Moscow and was in place as recently as the 2015 swimming world championships in Kazan -- when everyone in Russian sports knew they were under the doping microscope.Russias deputy minister of sports, Yuri Nagornykh, who was also part of Russias Olympic Committee, would direct workers at the Moscow lab of which positive samples to send through to be reported to WADA and which to hold back. Assisting the plan was Russias national security service -- the FSB, the current version of the Soviet Unions KGB.The Moscow laboratory was effectively caught up in the jaws of a vice, the report said. It was a key player in the successful operation of a state imposed and rigorously controlled program, which was overall managed and dictated by the (Ministry of Sport).Yes, McLaren wrote, it could be made to seem as though workers at the laboratory were acting alone. But his investigation undercut that theory.The Moscow Laboratory personnel acted as they did because, as (one) witness expressed, if they did not, they would no longer be employed there, he concluded.On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said officials named as directly responsible in the doping scheme would be suspended. He asked for more information from WADA so Russia could conduct its own investigation.McLaren said out of 577 positive sample screenings he had access to, 312 positive results were held back -- or labeled Save by the lab workers. More than 250 of the 312 Saves came from track and field and weightlifting, but other sports involved included swimming, rowing, snowboarding -- even table tennis.McLaren suggested the numbers could have been higher, but he had only 57 days for his investigation.Time is crucial because the Olympics begin Aug. 5, and decisions about Russias participation in Rio must be made.WADA president Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC member, said WADA is working to establish guidelines that will help the IOC and international sports federations identify exceptions to a potential Russian ban -- notably, athletes who trained in other countries that had robust, clean anti-doping systems. Those athletes, WADA said, should be allowed to compete in Rio under a neutral flag.McLaren said he was unwaveringly confident in his report, and insisted there was no leak, as several sports leaders suggested over the weekend, when draft letters calling for Russias ban were leaked to the media.One of the letters co-signers was Paul Melia, who heads Canadas anti-doping organization and was in Toronto for McLarens presentation.Im shocked and devastated by whats been going on, Melia said. And I can only imagine how betrayed the clean athletes of the world are feeling today in the face of this evidence.---AP Sports Writers Luke Meredith, Will Graves and Graham Dunbar and correspondent Charmaine Noronha contributed to this report. ' ' '