1.2 billion unanswered prayers!

Come any great sporting event and everyone turns a aficionado, an expert, with people in every nook and corner trying to predict the outcome of the event! Suddenly there is an adrenaline rush and people are pumped -up. Ask any person on the streets the importance of today and he will instantly reply about the inaugural match of Cricket WC 2011 is to be held in Dhaka between India and Bangladesh! Hardly anyone will remember Shivaji Jayanti.

Come any World Cup season you cannot fail to miss the build-up and the hype surrounding it. Months before the actual event, inflation in electronics forgets to rise and there is a sudden drop in the prices of televisions and home theatres as they start self-replicating and automatically jump on to the shelves for sale!

Every other person you meet becomes a statsguru and starts predicting the outcome of the contest with seemingly uncanny surety. Editorials all around are filled with tips for the players as everyone tries their hand at being a team manager. Sports column overflow. The attitudes of my fellow Indians towards our ever "PIECE-LOVING" neighbour seems to have changed. Even the most aggressive person around seems to mellow down and take a emotional backseat. Take for example our very own loving politician Bal Thackeray. He has always been taking a non-PAK stance in mumbai, but now feels bad that he will be missing the Pakis till the final, i.e. if they manage to come all the way. He also added that they must come to Mumbai nevertheless, be recieved with great pomp and be made to stay in their much loved hotel, The Taj Mahal! I just love this man for his unpredictability!!

India had last lifted the coveted cup under the captaincy of perhaps the best all-rounder ever produced in the sub-continent, way back in 1983! The men-in-blue now are riding on real high hopes of 1.2billion Indians and many more around the world. Time for the No.1 test team to become the No.1 in ODI. Let's get going!