Friends, the big day has come. It is Sunday, June 16, and we face the enemy on the field of battle. I have on the same lucky clothes I was wearing the last time we beat them, and I have the Tricolour at hand for the celebrations that will surely come. And to wave during the ad breaks also because there is so much patriotism in those. A win this time will mean everything given how much bitterness and hatred exists between the two sides, something that the rest of the world doesn’t really understand.

The odds are in our favour. The old bookmaker Ladbrokes has India winning at 2/5. Meaning that if you bet 5 pounds you win only 2. The enemy (I cannot bring myself to say their name) are 2/1, meaning that if you bet 5 pounds you win 10. The betting site Bet365 is in fact offering 3/1.

The reason we are favoured is, of course, that for one thing we have one of the best teams in the world and they do not and for another, we have always defeated them on this, the biggest stage of all. There is a third reason and it is one that may not have occurred to people other than the bookies. And by this I mean the preponderance of Gujaratis in this team, surely the guarantor of excellence. Between Hardik of Surat, Bumrah of Baroda and Jadeja of Jamnagar, there is enough and more to see the side through. I bet you did not realise that there was such an extensive capture of national space by my people. It has happened gradually and these things creep up on you. But rest assured that you are in safe hands.

Speaking of hands, I have been considerably inspired by the fancy dressing of our bat-ball battalion. I was surprised why, in our era of burning nationalism, it has taken this long for cricketactors — a word I have coined to describe heroes who can competently bat, bowl, field as well as peddle underwear, insurance and deodorant — to flash daggers on their gloves.

MS Dhoni is an honorary (i.e., not real) lieutenant colonel in the Parachute Regiment of the Territorial Army, which is not a real army (and military historians will understand when I say that a parachute regiment is pretty much the most useless formation of modern warfare — Google “market garden”). On the other hand, my house shares a real wall with the real Parachute Regiment and so I am surely entitled to wear their regalia by way of association. I hope it is the Nike swoosh because that is all I have on my T-shirt.

As a person of vast experience in watching cricket, I can offer some tips to those of you who get nervous in the moments when the going gets tough. The simplest way is to switch off from the ugliness and look away. But that is escapism and we should not indulge in it. We should remain focused on supporting the side and assessing why it is that we are not performing as we should. Victory comes easier to those who remain engaged and continue to fight. Keep waving the flag and believe in what it stands for. The other side also waves it but their reasons are not as benign as ours.

If things look really tight, remember the record. They have never been able to really overwhelm us, and it is improbable that they will this time as well. Having said all this, friends, it is possible even if unlikely that we may lose. It would be remiss of me not to prepare you for that. Should defeat happen, I do not want you to be despondent. It is not the end of the world. In a few years (I believe the year is 2024), we will have another chance to go up against and vanquish the enemy. If they have won now, we should congratulate them for their success and let them enjoy their moment. We must not lose too much heart because surely our day will also come and we will be able to be proud of the Idea of India XI again. Meanwhile, life will go on.

I am not quite sure how we arrived here while discussing the cricket match today. But for some reason it feels relevant.