Did you wake up with that familiar, unexplainable twitch again?
It’s the day of a big cricket final. Maybe you had a nightmare. The nightmare likely has specific coordinates: November 19, 2023, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
If you did, you’re not alone.
What unfolded that evening inflicted unimaginable pain on a nation of billions. A juggernaut halted in its tracks. A team that had looked invincible throughout the tournament was suddenly brought crashing down to earth.
But cricket fans are not the only ones feeling the nerves this Sunday.
If you are a badminton fan, sleep might have been even harder to come by. Your wait for the All England Open crown has been longer, much longer. Pullela Gopichand was the last shuttler from India to win the prestigious title in 2001. 25 years is a lifetime in an age of shrinking attention spans.
Two cities. Two finals. Two stubborn jinxes.
The India vs New Zealand T20 World Cup final will begin at 7:00 PM IST. Meanwhile, Lakshya Sen’s All England Open final is scheduled to start not before 5:30 PM IST.
Star Sports will provide the live television broadcast, while JioHotstar will stream both matches live in India.
The first is the T20 World Cup final between India and New Zealand. India have never beaten the BlackCaps in a T20 World Cup match. Yes, never.
Yet New Zealand may not even be the biggest concern for many Indian fans. On Sunday, they will be hoping the Ahmedabad stadium finally becomes a friend rather than a tormentor.
India have a 0–2 record in World Cup matches at the world’s largest cricket venue. The defeat to Australia in the 2023 ODI World Cup final remains a scar on Indian cricket’s memory. Only last month, India were comprehensively outplayed by South Africa in a Super 8 match at the same venue.
Nearly 7,000 kilometres away, another final carries its own weight of history.
At the All England Open final in Birmingham, Lakshya Sen faces Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chun-yi — a rival he has yet to defeat in four meetings.
But Lakshya is also confronting a tournament that has long resisted India’s rise.
For all of India’s transformation into a badminton powerhouse, the All England has remained strangely elusive. Since Saina Nehwal’s emergence, Indian players have collected Olympic medals, Commonwealth Games medals and Asian Games medals. They even lifted the Thomas Cup.
Yet the sport’s oldest tournament has repeatedly slipped through Indian fingers.
Saina reached the final once in 2015. PV Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist and five-time World Championships medallist, has never made the final here. Lakshya himself felt the sting, finishing runner-up in 2022 before falling short in the semi-final two years later.
The spotlight, however, inevitably returns to Ahmedabad.
AHMEDABAD STADIUM NEEDS A TROPHY
For all its architectural enormity and world-class infrastructure, the Narendra Modi Stadium remains a colossus in search of a soul. In the mythology of Indian cricket, a venue is consecrated not by seating capacity or LED rings, but by folklore — by nights when the home side refused to yield.
Wankhede has the 2011 World Cup. Eden Gardens has the 1993 Hero Cup and the miracle of 2001.
Ahmedabad, despite its grandeur, is still haunted by the echoing silence of November 19, 2023.
Until India lifts a major trophy on this turf, the stadium risks remaining a magnificent gallery rather than a fortress.
There is also a recurring critique of the Ahmedabad crowd: that the energy can evaporate the moment India finds itself in trouble. We saw it when Pat Cummins vowed to silence the sea of blue, a promise he kept with chilling efficiency.
Now Mitchell Santner arrives with similar calm intent. For New Zealand, the objective is simple: turn the world’s largest cricket stadium into the world’s largest library.
Sunday’s psychological contest may be as much about noise as it is about runs.
Perhaps the vastness of the venue plays its part. Unlike the claustrophobic intensity of Wankhede or the cauldron-like roar of Eden Gardens, the sound in Ahmedabad often feels diffused, struggling to concentrate its fury at the centre of the pitch. In India’s older cricket cathedrals, the crowd feels almost within arm’s reach of the action. Here, the theatre is grander — but sometimes more distant.
Which is why the crowd must find its voice and hold it.
Great stadiums are defined by the nights they refuse to fall silent, nights when the supporters drag a stuttering team across the line. If India are to exorcise the ghosts of 2023 and break the BlackCaps jinx, the Motera faithful must provide the soundtrack.
Only then will the stadium truly become what its scale promises: a cathedral of Indian cricket rather than merely its grandest monument.
A FAMILIAR TROUBLE FOR LAKSHYA
Across continents, another test of nerve awaits.
While the world’s attention lingers on Ahmedabad’s vast outfield, a quieter drama will unfold in the intimate arena of Birmingham. For Lakshya Sen, Sunday’s All England final is an encounter with a persistent shadow.
Across the net stands Lin Chun-yi, the explosive left-hander from Chinese Taipei who has repeatedly posed problems for the Indian.
Momentum, on paper, favours Lakshya. He arrives in the final after a 97-minute semi-final, fought through cramps and punishing rallies, having also defeated Li Shifeng and world No. 1 Shi Yuqi earlier in the tournament.
Yet against Lin, momentum has rarely told the full story.
The parallels with cricket are difficult to ignore. Much like the New Zealand side that stunned India with a clinical 3–0 Test whitewash in 2024, Lin has shown a knack for quieting Indian crowds.
At the India Open in January, he dismantled Lakshya before a partisan Delhi crowd that had turned the arena into a chorus of “two rupay ki Pepsi” chants. Lin moved through that match with a stubborn calm, reading the drift and tempo of the hall with clarity while Lakshya searched for answers.
The matchup itself complicates matters. As coach Vimal Kumar observed after that defeat, Lin’s left-handed angles and steep smashes make him particularly difficult to read. Give him even a slightly short lift and he punishes it ruthlessly, driving the shuttle down with a sharpness that thrives on hesitation.
If Lakshya is to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Prakash Padukone and finally conquer the All England, he must convert tactical awareness into execution under the sport’s fiercest spotlight.
Two cities. Two hurdles.
And one collective hope that as Sunday turns into Monday in Ahmedabad and the lights dim in Birmingham, the only thing left of these long-standing jinxes will be the stories of how they were finally broken.
