Dream final today, Dhoni says mein zyada sapne nahin dekhta, I live for the present

That’s the mood that this team has been trying to create — Team India is not a bunch of nice boys, they are winners, here to play hard cricket, here to enjoy every moment of it.

Off the field too, never has this team been so animated. After the stunning win over Australia, Virender Sehwag decided to go topless, throwing his shirt to fans, and Dhoni hugged every fan who came his way, his smile at its best. For one full hour, the Indians celebrated in the dressing room, dancing, ordering wine, hurling buckets of water. Over aloo-gobi and roti, they tried to relive the match. Because it’s not everyday that Australia gets beaten.

That over, it was time to think Monday. Rather unusual to have a Twenty20 World Cup final played in bright sunlight but they are already calling it a dream final.

Dhoni has his own reality check. “Mein zyada sapne nahin dekhta hoon (I don’t dream too much),” he says, adding he firmly believes “in living for the present, not dwelling in the past or future.”

“India-Pakistan has always been special, and one can never negate that fact. It’s difficult to categorize it as just another match,” he admits. Counterpart Shoaib Malik agrees this match is about “josh”, about pressure, tension, even among fans. “Jab unhe tension hone lagti hai, toh hame bhi tension ho jaati hai (When they get tense, so do we),” he says.

As a child Dhoni had watched and enjoyed just those matches where Sachin Tendulkar played. And now he has just taken his side to a level where the likes of Sachin, even Sourav and Dravid, haven’t been missed at all. Instead, it’s been his captaincy skills in managing bowlers, the faster bowlers that has hogged the limelight. And Yuvraj Singh. “Yes, I have been feeling in great touch with the bat. Pain or no pain, it doesn’t matter, those are little things, the important thing is that the team should win,” he says.

Malik agrees that Yuvraj is the dangerman, along with RP Singh and Sreesanth. “Viru bhi,” he adds. Sehwag has an injured groin and there are doubts but reports suggest he has been doing everything to be fit in time. Sehwag wants to play, just as much as Imran Nazir.

That India and Pakistan have had early exits in the conventional World Cup is dead and buried; that India has always had the better of Pakistan is neither a concern for Pakistan or encouraging Indians to different levels. Neither know what the results of the match will be — Malik is hoping for an Eid gift to his countrymen in the holy month of Ramzan; Dhoni just wants to win it because nobody expected his team to be hanging in there.