Keep on going fellows!

Perhaps it is way too early for predictions and way too late for criticisms and praises. We chose the grounds. We picked the army and the armor, now it is all about going at it. One more a series of heroics and the Cup will be ours once again.
The road is rough with battles on untrodden grounds even on the home soil. The sun will begin to shine, and the winds will settle. The waters that knew no limits for the last couple of weeks will go back to their lodgings. The people, recovering from the flood-shocks and election fevers, will tune their voices and take to roads. One more month to go and it won’t be a mere word picture drawn on a travel leaflet- but the reality.
This is not a mid-January dream every Sri Lankan has, but the ultimate yearning that has got stitched to the ‘Sri Lankanness’ of everyone. The dream of winning and being on top of the world do not fall into the category of selfish desires. Rather it is an innocent way of showing your patriotism and your real sense of belonging to this island soil. Even when the troubled times hit the land, cricket has been the unifying force that made us all sit in front of the TV, tuned into the same TV or radio channel and cheer the nation’s best in the same voice, despite all our physical or attitudinal differences.
Since then, we have come a long way; with peace strewn in the four corners of the country and fear of getting killed on the road without getting to know the final score, eliminated from the hearts of those who love to take to outdoors, light crackers and wave flags in the name of victory.
Be it a vociferous celebration or a silent prayer uttered in seclusion, every bit of it is going to count in the journey to the victory which is by no means a velvet-carpeted one.

Let the flags dance to the tune of cheering, let those drums beat and the baila music lull the cricket-feverish island youth, let its resonance pull crowds from all over the country, let them sit in one row and shout out the same slogans in the name of the victory a nation demands in one voice.
Those who rewrite history inevitably become kings. As for them, they have already reserved their places in history for making the Lion flag flutter in its glory on every continent and bringing together a nation that was shattered in so many places. In a juncture like this, a victory would be just the thing that would appease the triumph-hungry nation that has been united to desire and to drink nectar from one Cup.

And there are still people who ask me why I die for cricket.