Xander Drax to the rescue

I have been trolling the web for the past few days looking for articles about the Final that rise beyond the common and seek a balance between hype and conjecture.

Call it a search for a frame of reference for the occasion, if you will.

I have found it. Take a bow, Sharda Ugra.

Read the entire thing here.

With reference to the strategy for tomorrow's game, a small nugget comforted me and told me that the Indian team is in good hands. I trust MS Dhoni implicitly. Win or lose, I am happy he is our captain.

Like he (Dhoni) has always done, he will stay away from the bowlers meeting on Friday night, saying it helps him formulate his own alternative plans, if the bowling begins to fray on the field the next day.

Having beaten West Indies, Australia, and Pakistan (in that order, too), India has one other World Cup-winning team left in its sights - Sri Lanka. It is too wonderful a co-incidence to not be part of some mage-super-dooper plan. Or so I believe.

A date with Destiny awaits and I will leave you with these words by Rudyard Kipling (from If):

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

(...)

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

(...)

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

(...)

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

P.S. If you have made it this far and are wondering about the title of this post, click here and see if that helps a little bit.