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The grand finale
 The finals are here! The finals are here! The ultimate test for the body and the mind is here. Two teams, one endowed with supreme skills and a symbol of solidity, and the other, talent spilling out as fine as milk does from a heated gas stove. Australia and India, it's the final!
"No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and
strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance."...these words of Samuel Johnson echo repeatedly in one's mind, even as a bubbly and confident India take on an ever-confident Australia.
The pressure levels in a final are tremendous. One can withstand the hammerings of a Gilchrist, one can face the fiery Brett Lee at his best. Pressure refers to handling all this, and something more. That 'something more' is the very standing in a cricket ground during a final. That's the real pressure, and that's what causes most teams, including India, to collapse as easily as bricks not properly arranged.
 Then again, what kind of motivation did India get to come so far as they have? For a team written off from the time they came to tour Down Under to a team who 'emotionally' won the Tests and are now doing very well in the ODIs, a victory over Australia in the finals does not seem too far off.
The good thing about the ongoing tri-series (any idea who the third team is?) is that the winner is decided on a best-of-three scale. This differs from the routine one-day finals we have seen between India-Australia, where India couldn't stand the pressure and was washed out quite comprehensively.
Cricket finals have always that pulsating thing about them, they lift your souls to heights never reached before, they make your senses travel to unexplored regions. No league game, however exciting and enthralling they may have been, matches the charm and boldness often associated with finals.
Here's to a grand finale!
Srinivasa
Ramanujam
Published on 6th Feb, 2004
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