The warm up is over. Mark the date. It is starting on 5th October 2023. India is coming to the party slightly late though. They will take on mighty Australia on 8th Oct. From the IL Master group the masters are also ready with their strategies. Looks like they have now received a good practice in the rain affected Asia cup where India received a long awaited tournament win.

Now it is time of not to repeat history. Yes, that is right. It is not a typo. After 2011 world cup, we became number one cricket team in one day as well as in test. In fact, the pattern is that we tend to be number one team while going into the world cup, usually, winning one or two major tournaments. However, due to some abysmal performance in the knockout, the world cup remained a dream from last 12 years. This time India won Asia cup and right after that nearly annihilate Australia with half the top players not even playing. This is scary and we do not want the history to be repeated.

Apart from the history, all seems to be falling in place though. Openers are in blitzkrieg form. With both KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer among runs in the middle order and of course we have Kohli who too got his form back and hit a century against arch rival Pakistan just a few days ago. With Jadeja and Hardik for the lower order, it seems to be a very formidable batting side.

The bowling department looks similarly strong. With Bumrah back and looking as dangerous as ever, Shami and Siraj getting man of match awards with a 6-wickets and 5-wickets howl in consecutive matches and so does Kuldip – all seems to be nicely clicking. In fact, the scariest part is that all seems so good that it feels like too good to be true and we hope we did not peak too early as it is a long tournament.

While Indian cricket team we hope is going to give their best in the ground. Off the ground it is again the turn of the IL Masters’. Their battle is going to be legendary. On one side we have the consistent players like the Bond, the Invincible, the Adimanav and the Chupe Rustam. On the other side we have the unpredictable masters like the Dark Horse, the Terminator and the ClutchGod. To beat them all there are also masters like the Lone Wolf or the Veteran who believes more in balanced approach which may be the key for winning the slightly longer version of the game. And finally, there are Betulose, the Challenger, the Ingenious, and the Dude who were there to change the equation in some of the critical games. So, best of luck to all. May the best master win.