MUMBAI // MS Dhoni has a date with destiny that could catapult him into a different stratosphere in terms of Indian sports stars.
Dhoni, preparing to take on Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday, is the third captain to lead India into a World Cup final after Kapil Dev and Sourav Ganguly.
He has the right pedigree already, having guided India to victory in the World Twenty20 championship four years ago. But this is a different scenario.
Dhoni led astutely in a 29-run win over arch rivals Pakistan in a high-stakes semi-final at Mohali on Wednesday, triggering wild celebrations and raising hopes that he can emulate Kapil's success of 1983.
If he does succeed, India would also have the distinction of beating all former World Cup champions on way to the title.
India defeated the West Indies in their last league match in Chennai by 80 runs and beat Australia, the three-time defending champions, by five wickets in Ahmedabad to set up the high-profile semi-final with Pakistan. It now leaves only Sri Lanka from the list of former champions to beat.
The West Indians were champions in 1975 and 1979 before India spoiled the Caribbean squad's run with an upset victory in the 1983 final at Lord's. Australia won in 1987, 1999, 2003 and 2007, while Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996.
In the 2003 final, a Ganguly-led India team went in with great expectations but were outplayed in a 125-run defeat to Australia.
Dhoni knows any slip-up against Sri Lanka could make a crucial difference in the title game.
"Sri Lanka are a very good team and we will have to do our best to beat them," Dhoni said after the win over Pakistan. "We've been tested more often than not in the games we have played so I think it will be a very good final."
Dhoni thinks his team have been shaping well for the big game.
"It was important that we peaked at the right time. We've chased some decent scores and we have won batting first. Everybody's giving more than 100 per cent on the field, so we're ready for the final," Dhoni said.
The 29-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman was proud of the way his squad had pulled together.
"The team unity, the way we are backing each other and not criticising any player has been great," he said. "If somebody is having a bad time on the field we are making sure he is wanted and everybody is helping each other. That's what really counts in team sport.
"Individuals have stepped up and said 'OK I will be the person who will perform in this particular game' but overall everybody has contributed so far in bits and pieces."
Dhoni got support from Kapil, who said that the current captain should be respected regardless of the result in Saturday's final.
"I will never doubt Dhoni's credentials as a captain irrespective of the result of the World Cup final," Kapil said. "A lot of people believe that it's the ultimate result which will count but I believe otherwise."
Allan Border, Australia's World Cup-winning captain, however, thought that Dhoni had a big challenge ahead.
"I know people here won't like it but I believe that Sri Lanka will go into the final as favourites," Border said.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
Brief scores:
Day 2
England: 277 & 19-0
West Indies: 154
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
- Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
- Thursday 20 January: v England
- Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
UAE squad:
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith
