Come February 15th 2015 two injury plagued teams battle it out at the Adelaide Oval in as usual the most awaited contest of the mega event.
Traditional rival India and Pakistan go head-to-head for the 6th time in the world cup history with a tournament record India can boast of but Pakistan would like to forget.
Out of the 5 meetings these two teams have had in the ODI world cups, India has only managed to win five times whereas Pakistan has always had to find a painstaking way of losing a match which looked in the bag.
But then that’s the beauty of the one day game, the best team doesn’t always win.
Thinking enthusiastically Pakistan has a better chance of winning this time but don’t ask me why because I don’t know. I just have that gut feeling that the usual Inshallah Mashallah thing will work this time, in our favour that is and believe me this feeling coming from within is deeper and stronger than the previous five times.
Of course that deep strong gut feeling has nothing to do with that little thing, what was he called, ah yes Tendulkar not being there anymore. How can anyone sane enough imagine in his wildest dreams even that an ordinary record of 313 runs with an average of just over 78 in 5 matches could have an impact on a team’s dominance over its arch rivals at a world cup.
This feeling comes from the fact that our own dependable, stylish, technically sound Shahid Afridi has the motivation this time round to snatch back an ODI record he had held for 18 odd years from that slogging wicket keeper AB de Villiers. And I have no reason to believe Afridi won’t do it against India specially with one of the most dreaded quickies in modern day cricket at least if not the entire history of cricket called something Sharma, out of their attack due to injury.
Well the pressure is on India, it has everything to lose. As for us a win will bring a breath of fresh air, a start we are looking for but if we lose it would just be a continuity of a tradition and an opportunity to go on about how things happened in 1992 until we either win this world cup or till God decides to punish us for all our sins and sends our cricket team packing.
