December is the year’s biggest party, which makes January the following year’s ultimate hangover. And this isn’t the sort of hangover that ends with a tiger in your bedroom. Unless Salman Khan gets drunk and decides to drive home again. January gets written off as boring, a month in which you come off your high and trudge back to a life of misery. But it doesn’t have to be. There’s plenty to look forward to in January. In fact, I’ve created the definitive compendium (latin for “words I learnt while studying for the GRE”) for the month. So here’s what you can look forward to:

India-Pakistan cricket: India versus Pakistan is the India versus Pakistan of the cricket world. And in January, Pakistan will continue their tour after a quick break to celebrate the New Year, unless India offers proof of its existence, in which case, they will deny it. When the two countries play, it’s about more than cricket; it’s about patriotism, friendship, and coming up with creative stadium-chants about Shahid Afridi’s age (11, at last count). Of course, things occasionally take a political turn, like in the famous Patna ODI of 1983 in which the Pakistani batsmen were arrested for hitting fours because the government insisted that “constant violation of India’s boundaries will not be tolerated.”