IT’S WHAT WE’RE ALL THINKING ABOUT

The year after the FIFA World Cup and before the Olympics may not mean much to most of the world, but in this neck of the woods, it’s party time (or hold your breath and don’t move from the couch time, depending on how superstitious you are). The ICC Cricket World Cup is back, and I’m as excited as it’s humanly possible.

Is Bangladesh going to win this one? I don’t know. Probably not, but do I keep dreaming about it? Hell yeah! There has never been a better men’s national cricket team in Bangladesh, and few teams in the world are as experienced. We’ve been beating teams left right and centre (mostly at home) and the talk has shifted from Bangladesh giving the bigger teams a challenge to whether or not we can make it to the semis. I have the answer to that by the way, we can.

Coming back to reality, this tournament will be tough. There are going to be 9 matches in a round robin format, with nowhere to hide if you fall into a string of bad results. An odd win won’t lift you to the top of the table, but that also means an odd loss isn’t the end of the world. It’s The Tigers though, and you know they’re going to put us through a gruelling emotional ride. But I’m ready for it, my lucky t-shirt is ready for it, and the lucky corner in my couch better be ready for it because I’m not gonna move for a long long time.

– Azmin Azran, Sub-editor, SHOUT