Chapter 16: Chapter 16:
The brand-new, red SG leather ball was sitting right in my lap. I reached out, my thumb tracing the sharp, rigid six-row seam. It felt freezing cold against my calloused skin.
"Devendra, you open from the far end," Nitin said, pointing his chalk at the diamond sketch on the tent floor. "Kamlesh, you take the first over from this side. The wind is—"
I stood up from the wooden crate, tucking the shiny leather ball into my fingers. "I’ll take the new ball, Nitin. My left-arm angle will—"
"No," Achrekar sir said.
His gravelly voice cut through the tent from the entryway. He hadn’t even lifted his eyes from his clipboard. He walked straight past the gear bags, snatched the red ball right out of my hand, and tossed it straight into Devendra’s chest.
"Sir, my shoulder is fine," I said, stepping forward. "I can bowl a four-over spell before the cracks—"
"No means no, Kabir," Achrekar sir cut me off, his voice flat and final. He didn’t offer a single word of explanation. He just pointed his pen toward the field. "You spent five hours running yesterday. Your legs are dead. Go stand at first slip next to Sanjay. Don’t move from the ring."
I opened my mouth to argue, but the coach turned his back to change his clipboard sheets. The discussion was completely over.
Nitin gave me a quick, quiet shrug. "Pads off, Kabir. Let’s go out. They’re already waiting."
Standing at first slip next to our keeper, Sanjay, gave an entirely different perspective of the maidan.
At eight years old, crouching next to the keeper’s hips meant I was practically looking straight up at the Anjuman opening batsmen. The afternoon sun was a blazing, white furnace right over our heads, baking the turf pitch until the pale brown dirt looked dry as bone. The morning moisture was completely gone. The ball wasn’t going to swing a single millimeter today, but the cracks were sitting wide open, waiting.
"They’re going to come hard, Kabir," Sanjay whispered behind his large leather gloves, squatting down into the dust. "Their coach was screaming at them during lunch. They need four runs an over to even chase this down in two sessions."
"Let them hit," I said, crouching low with my palms resting on my thighs.
My lower back is a solid block of concrete. Every time I bend my knees, my quads flare up. Just stay low. If they flash hard at Devendra’s pace, the edge will fly fast.
Devendra ran in from the pavilion end, his arms pumping as his spikes dug into the dry grass. He loaded up and fired a quick, back-of-a-length ball right on the fourth-stump line.
Anjuman’s opening batsman didn’t even try to look at the pitch. He was in a massive rush to clear the scoreboard. He planted his front foot blindly and threw his hands into a wild, heavy slash, looking to clear the point infield.
The ball skidded low off the parched surface, catching a thick, screaming outside edge.
It’s flying. Right at my stomach. Don’t look away.
The red blur rocketed straight toward my chest. Relying on Sachin’s elite tracking reflex, I didn’t panic or drop my hands. I stayed perfectly steady, brought my palms together right in front of my ribs, and let the hard leather slap into my inner gloves.
Smack.
"Howzatt!" Sanjay screamed, jumping into the air and grabbing my shoulder.
The umpire’s finger shot up before the Anjuman batsman could even finish his follow-through. He was gone for a duck on the third ball of the innings.
Score: 0 for 1.
"Brilliant catch, Kabir!" Nitin shouted from short-cover, running over to give my cap a hard slap.
I tossed the ball back to Devendra, my palms stinging from the raw impact of the fast edge. I didn’t say anything. I just went straight back to my mark next to Sanjay, dropping my weight into the crouch again.
By 1:15 PM, the Anjuman chase had turned into a complete car crash of panic.
Their number three batsman, a short boy named Rizwan, walked out with clear instructions to whack everything. He didn’t care about the Khadoos rule of survival. On his second ball, he stepped down the pitch to Devendra and lofted him violently over mid-off for a flat boundary.
"Keep the field tight, Nitin!" Salman yelled from their boundary tent. "They are scared! Keep hitting!"
But the maidan always punishes a rush.
In the next over, Achrekar sir waved his hand from the boundary line, telling Nitin to bring on our senior off-spinner, Vinay. Vinay didn’t bowl fast; he just tossed the scuffed old leather high, letting it drift into the cracks.
Rizwan saw the loop and got greedy again. He charged down the pitch, looking to smash it over the railway track fence.
He’s too far forward. He didn’t look at the dirt patch.
The ball hit a massive, jagged crack right on middle-and-off. It didn’t bounce. It just gripped the loose soil, stayed under ankle height, and turned sharply between Rizwan’s legs. Sanjay gathered it cleanly behind the stumps and whipped the bails off in a single motion.
"Out!" the umpire yelled.
Rizwan was standing a full yard out of his crease, his bat completely stuck in the air.
Score: 34 for 2.
"They’re playing like it’s a one-day match, re," Sanjay chuckled, tossing the ball back to Vinay. "They think they can chase two hundred and eighty before tea."
"They’re panicking because of the target," I muttered, adjusting my shin guards. "The more they miss, the faster the tail will come out."
The collapse moved incredibly fast after that.
Their captain walked out at number four and tried to anchor the innings, scraping out twelve painful runs, but our leg-spinner, Manish, locked him down from the opposite end. Manish bowled four dot balls straight, building the pressure until the captain lost his temper and tried a risky, sweeping slog-shot against the turn. The ball took a top edge, looping straight to Kamlesh at short-mid-wicket.
Score: 65 for 3.
Every time a new batsman walked past me to take guard, I could hear their breathing—heavy, fast, and completely desperate. They weren’t looking at the pitch lines; they were constantly checking the boundary markers and looking back at their coach, who was pacing furiously outside their canvas tent.
By 2:45 PM, Baig walked out to bat at number seven. His pads were too big for him, and his face was bright red from the heat.
"Give him the fast one, Vinay!" Sanjay called out from behind. "He can’t play the turn!"
Baig didn’t even look at me at first slip. He took a guard line, tap-tapped his bat hard enough to create a small cloud of dust, and faced Vinay.
Vinay tossed a slower, drifting ball right on the off-stump line. Baig didn’t try to defend. He lunged forward, swung his bat like a club, and managed to top-edge it over the slips for a lucky couple of runs.
"Watch his front foot, Vinay," I called out from slip. "He’s clearing his leg too early. He’s scared of the ball coming in."
"Shut up, chotu," Baig muttered, not looking back at me as he scratched the dirt.
On the next ball, Vinay listened. He flattened his trajectory, bowling a quick slider straight for Baig’s front pad. Baig tried to clear his leg again to whack it toward the leg-side boundary, but his foot got stuck in the loose soil. The ball beat his inside edge cleanly, striking his back flap right in front of the middle stump.
Thud.
"Howzatt!" the whole inner ring screamed.
The umpire didn’t even hesitate. The index finger went straight into the air. Baig was gone for just 6 runs. He stared at the umpire, threw his head back in frustration, and marched off toward the tents, slapping his bat against his pads.
Score: 110 for 6.
The remaining four tail-enders didn’t last another twenty minutes. They were completely terrified of the uneven bounce off the cracks. Manish and Vinay just bowled a relentless straight line, letting the dry surface do the rest of the work. Two quick clean-bowled dismissals and a simple bat-pad catch right to short-leg wrapped up the entire innings.
At 3:20 PM, a full fifty minutes before the scheduled tea break, Vinay fired a faster ball that took the number eleven’s off-stump cleanly out of the dirt.
"All out!" the main umpire shouted, lifting the wooden bails into the air.
The match was officially over. Anjuman-I-Islam was bundled out for exactly 153 runs in 38 overs.
The Shardashram dugout erupted into loud cheers, the standby boys sprinting onto the grass carrying water bottles and screaming. We had won the opening round of the Giles Shield by an absolute mile on the first-innings lead.
I unbuckled my helmet, my legs completely numb from standing at slip for three hours. My uniform was completely brown, and my throat felt like sandpaper, but the scoreboard was locked.
Nitin ran over, grabbing my shoulder and shaking it hard. "One hundred and fifty-three, Kabir! We completely destroyed their top order!"
"Good bowling from Vinay," I said, wiping the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve.
Milind Rege was already walking across the boundary grass toward our tent, his black notebook tucked under his arm. He stopped right next to Achrekar sir, who was leaning against his Bajaj Chetak scooter.
"Eighty-three with the bat yesterday, and a clean catch at slip today," Rege said, looking at my small frame as I dragged my kit bag past. "The boy didn’t give them an inch across two days, Achrekar. He’s the most disciplined opener I’ve seen in the junior draw this year."
Achrekar sir didn’t smile. He just clicked his fountain pen, closed his clipboard, and looked at me. "Tuesday morning, Shivaji Park nets at 5:00 AM, Kabir. Don’t be late because you won a match."
I lifted my canvas bag onto my shoulder, a tired, real smile hitting my face as I looked down at my dusty shoes. The first round was out of the way. The tournament was just getting started.
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