Dream dates await to define an epic year of sport in 2014 Presently, the Test Championship, widely accepted as the boost that format needs, was pencilled in for 2017, but the ICC Broadcaster, fearing advertising revenues will tank, has since got cold feet. It is expected to be cancelled unless India can guarantee a mass audience. At the moment, though, the Indian public are in thrall to the Indian Premier League. It may be glitzy and pay players well beyond their worth, but it is more a branch of showbiz than cricket. That is why a close and exciting Test series with England is crucial if the game proper is to survive and thrive. Football: June 14 By Henry Winter This is the date when England kick off in the World Cup against Italy in Manaus. Tournaments provide a wonderful opportunity to explore a country and England fans already talk excitedly of trips to see alligators and piranhas and just to experience the jungle. Some will stay on in Miami after England's two final warm-up games and then fly straight to Manaus. The local tourist board have already promised a party for the visiting fans. The reception will certainly be hot in the Arena da Amazônia, particularly as Fifa has brought the kick-off time forward to meet European television demands. It is a journey into the unknown for England. It is a huge challenge on the pitch with Mario Balotelli doubtless fired up and Italy's ability to keep possession superior to England's. The footballing odds and climactic conditions are against them but England have a chance. If Wayne Rooney is fit and fresh, and Roy Hodgson dispenses with caution and gives the likes of Ross Barkley an opportunity to run at the opposition defence, then England can worry Italy. Rugby Union: June 21 By Mick Cleary This is the day of the third Test between New Zealand and England. This is the day we will find out just how much substance there is to England's revival under Stuart Lancaster. This is the day we discover if there is major surgery to be done ahead of the 2015 Rugby World Cup or merely some nip and tuck corrections to make ahead of the tournament 15 months later. This is the last tour before the world arrives on England's doorstep in 2015. There are parallels with the build-up to the 2003 triumph when England travelled to New Zealand four months prior to that tournament and defeated the All Blacks in Wellington. This England side is at a more formative stage but even so they need to show that they can stand toe-to-toe with the world's finest and yield nothing. They managed to do that at Twickenham in November (eventually losing 30-22) but have to prove that such displays are not one-off occurrences. Lancaster has a tricky opening to the tour with those players involved in the Aviva Premiership final ruled out of the first Test on June 7. By the time of the third Test, there will be no Cycling: July 5 By Ian Chadband When the Tour de France's unsurpassable travelling theatre rolls up in Britain, as it has done on only three previous occasions, it is always something to behold. Yet when it ventures further north than ever before on these shores to be given a warm embrace by Yorkshire, to the tune of a couple of million lining the village streets and dales of God's Own County, this Grand Depart promises to be truly special, with a British Tour champion Chris Froome beginning his defence here. The first stage on July 5 wends from Leeds to Harrogate. On a stage designed for the fast men, how perfect if Mark Cavendish could grasp the chance of wearing the yellow jersey in Harrogate, the home town of his mother Adele. This should be great. It is rare the opening stage gives sprinters the opportunity to don yellow yet this will be the second year in succession that the 25-time stage winner has an opportunity. In Corsica's Grand Depart, he was scuppered by a mass crash; in 2014, it may be Cavendish's last chance to achieve the dream of wearing the jersey that race organiser Christian Prudhomme feels his career merits. Hopefully, he will not miss out. Racing: April 26 By Marcus Armytage It happened in 2005/6 when Martin Pipe finally relinquished his trainers" title to Paul Nicholls and I reckon the title will go down to the wire once again but this time between Nicholls and the defending champion Nicky Henderson so I am nominating the final day of the National Hunt season at Sandown as racing's moment of 2014 and the one I am most looking forward to. I would not put it past Jonjo O'Neill to have a hand in it either. After Henderson's slightly stop-go start to the season, which has seen his two of his stable stars beaten first time out and another, Sprinter Sacre, starting after Christmas owing to an infection, nothing has gone quite so smoothly for Henderson this time. Henderson's eggs to a certain extent are all in the Cheltenham basket but he also has a live Grand National - the big bucks race of the jump season now - contender this time in his Hennessy and Topham Chase winner Triolo D'Alene. Formula One: Oct 12 By Tom Cary The inaugural Russian Grand Prix in the Black Sea resort of Sochi should be an interesting experience; the world's most decadent sport, a monument to capitalism, putting on a glitzy show in the former USSR. Formula One has been to incongruous locations before - China and India spring to mind, while there have even been grands prix mooted in Iran and Israel - but there is something about Russia, even if early scouting reports regarding the venue have been mixed. February's Winter Olympics, also taking place in Sochi, will be of particular interest to the Formula One fraternity. The rise of Russia as a Formula One destination has been coming, of course. Vitaly Petrov, the first Russian to race in the sport, was followed swiftly by other drivers and sponsors. Next season will see one Russian teenager driving for Toro Rosso, and another employed as a reserve for Sauber. They are there as part of a co-ordinated effort by a country preparing to host its first race in October, a race which has been signed off by Vladimir Putin himself. Boxing: May 3 By Gareth A Davies A 2014 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jnr, the pound for pound world No 1, and Amir Khan could be announced in the new year. With a likely date of May 3, the weeks of build-up will create a huge buzz around a massive event. Khan's every word - plus his life, style, chances, strengths and weaknesses - will be scrutinised to the nth degree as a huge British underdog will prepare to upset the form book. It will hark back to the days of Ricky Hatton's fights against Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and Joe Calzaghe's two mega-fights with Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jnr. This is when boxing crosses over to the mainstream. The Mayweather-Khan event may prove to be the highlight of them. The odds in the actual fight will back the imperious American. Khan, 10 years after winning Olympic Games silver in Athens, will be stepping up a weight division to 147lb for the first time, having not fought for 13 months. What the Bolton-born Khan does have is speed. And if he makes it count, and defeats the great American, he will become a global, mainstream star. Winter Sports: Feb 14 By Simon Hart There are not too many winter sports at which Britain have led the world over the years, but women's skeleton is certainly one of them. Britain have won a medal in the event at every Games since the sport became part of the Olympic programme in 2002 and there is every chance that proud record will be extended when the women's competition reaches its climax in Sochi on Feb 14. Four years ago, Amy Williams and her trusty sled, "Arthur," won skeleton gold in Vancouver, sparking wild celebrations within the Team GB camp. But team-mate Shelley Rudman, who famously had a frosty relationship with Williams, was rather less euphoric after a disastrous opening run consigned her to sixth place overall. She described her performance as "terrible." Now one of the most experienced sliders on the circuit, Rudman has the chance to make amends and go one better than the silver medal she won on her Olympic debut in Turin in 2006. If her form this year is anything to go by, the 32-year-old will be one of the favourites for gold. She won her first World Championship crown in commanding style in St Moritz in February and says her pre-season training has made her fitter and stronger than ever. Golf: Sept 26 By James Corrigan An autumnal morning in the Highlands at 7am on a Friday is not the usual place to discover a yelling throng of thousands. But Gleneagles on Sept 26 will be a place to behold. Anyone who saw the scenes around the first tee at Celtic Manor at the 2010 Ryder Cup will testify to the surreal wonderfulness of the situation. It was pouring down Noah-fashion, but the fans showed exactly where the biennial dust-up stands on the sporting calendar. That Welsh grandstand held 2,000 and it is difficult to imagine a better atmosphere, lit up with jokey chants to which the players and support staff, of both teams, responded magnificently. Except Gleneagles plans to go at least 3,000 better - and the noise will be the perfect beginning for a match which the Americans will be more inspired than ever to win. There are critics who say the match needs a US victory, as they have won only once in the past six stagings. Poppycock. The past two renewals have gone all the way to the last singles and, already this far out, the 2014 looks like being another humdinger. The sides possess proper characters who are not afraid to express their emotions. That is why the first morning will be filled by such expectancy. Golf genuinely will have seen, or, indeed heard, nothing like it. Athletics: April 13 Anyone who loves a bit of unpredictability in their sport should put April 13 in their diary. This year's Virgin Money London Marathon promises to be a gripping journey into the unknown as Mo Farah makes his long-awaited debut over 26.2 miles. Farah's 5,000 and 10,000 metres triumphs on the track at the Olympics and the World Championships have all been epic spectacles, but on each occasion he has been the pre-race favourite. Not so this time as Britain's greatest distance runner faces perhaps the toughest challenge of his career when he takes on the cream of the world's top marathon runners at their own game, including Kenyan world record-holder Wilson Kipsang. Farah has not exactly set the world alight on his previous outings on the roads but he will go to the start-line in Blackheath with six months of dedicated marathon training in his legs and the wise counsel of his American coach, Alberto Salazar, who was himself one of the marathon greats in the early 1980s. The stage is set in his home city for Farah to come flying down the Mall in first place before performing his trademark "Mobot" celebration as he crosses the line. But can he really do it in his first marathon? No one knows, and that is what makes the race so fascinating.