Dial V for Victory, Vendetta and Virat

Prophecy is foretold in many ways. The ancient Romans did trust the words of soothsayers, save for Julius Caesar of course (but let’s table this for another day). India mythologically has been spoken of as the land of plenty and a place that epitomized a sense of spirituality, mythology, theology in the birth of major religions of the non-Abrahamic faith. Those prophecies came from godmen, astrologers, yogis, your local priests and beliefs and superstitions passed down from gerontocratic elders to be codified as sanctum sanctorum in the family.

There is often said to be another religion in India, one that was born in the Anglo-Saxon world, but its largest devotees find home in India. Pandemic era frugality means I have no prizes to give out for such obvious questions. This is a sports article, so back on track (no pun intended).

Yes, the cliched adage comes to mind — cricket is a religion in India. In this there is prophecy too, where many a former upper echelon cricketer, the sport’s finest cognoscenti, do make their prognostications on who will etch their name in cricketing immortality. But more tellingly, in the shorter format, the U-19 World Cup is a good harbinger of things to come (Unmukt Chand disagrees with me, but this again for another day). In 2008, in the unlikeliest of Commonwealth countries for cricket, in Malaysia, a star was born (sorry…