It's still around 3 hours to go before the first ball is bowled but I cannot wait for the match to get started, and it's been this way for atleast the last 12 hours.
The continuous thinking + time-defying waiting + non-stop pre-match coverage and hoopla generated all around has ensured that the excitement, the nervous energy and the butterflies in my stomach have all reached a crescendo.
No matter whatever I am doing or not doing, every couple of minutes my mind goes back to the same questions: Kya hone wala hai? How will we fare? What's it gonna be like?
Will our injury-sticken team be able to put it across the full-strength Pakis?
Will we get an encore of Centurion circa 2003?
Will some unexpected name rise to the occasion and give our depleted team a new superstar from this match?
Can we maintain our near-flawless record against Pakistan in ICC-sponsored events?
Oh, it's too much to keep wondering. Wondering about all this only adds to the nervousness and curiosity.
No sane thoughts to calm myself seem to work. Sure it's just a game, as I see Younis Khan announcing himself available for the match while not being 100% fit.
The thing is, that no matter how objective you may try to be, such games cannot be treated as just a game although in theory, they should be.
It's like you cannot not be elated+nervous+excited if you are going out with one of the most beautiful women in the world, but outwardly, you need to display as if she is after all, just another woman. What a farce!
Facts-wise, nothing wrong with the "just another" statement, but the emotions that the occasions (India-Pak contest, To be with the best lady) stir, just do not reflect the strictly (and only theoretically/factually) correct "just another" tag.
So the probability of this game being treated as just a game, is as high as Osama bin Laden being elected as the President of the United States.
Mind you, I'm no jingoist and I can live with Pakistan winning (especially, - actually only, if they play better than us) without burning effigies, without losing my life and without stoning a cricketer's house.
I'll surely be mighty disappointed if we lose but that's fair enough - even though the disappointment of losing to Pakistan is acutely greater than losing to any other team in the world.
Which is why, it's anything but just a game - and the toughest part for even the players is this time - the few hours just before the match till they get to the ground - atleast till the action starts.
Just hope our guys have better nerves to come up trumps.
Never do I wait for any other game with such bated breath, anticipation, trepidation, perspiration, (heck, even constipation!) for "just a game" whose result shall offer either an unreal, unseen humiliation or supreme, unbridled exhilaration!
Watch this space for more..
