Chapter 22: Chapter 22: semi-2nd Part
The Saturday morning sun hadn’t yet cleared the banyan trees behind the pavilion, but the pitch at the MCA club ground was already leaking a thin layer of dry red dust.
I stood at first slip, my hands resting loose on my thighs. My legs felt a bit heavy from yesterday’s fielding, but the mustard oil from last night had stopped the muscles from freezing up completely. Next to me, Sanjay adjusted his large leather gloves, crouching low into the dirt.
"They’re resuming at two hundred and forty-two," Sanjay muttered, his eyes on the non-striker. "Vinay needs to hit the crack from ball one."
"The ball is seventy-five overs old," I said, keeping my eyes on the batsman’s front shoe line. "It won’t bounce much. It’s going to skid low."
At the crease stood Sule Gurukul’s number five, a tall boy who had blocked everything the previous evening. He took a fresh center guard from the umpire, tap-tapped his bat three times against the turf, and looked up.
Vinay ran in, his wrist dropping low as he fired a quicker, flatter delivery straight down the middle-stump line.
The batsman lunged forward, his bat straight, expecting the ball to turn away toward off-stump. But the scuffed leather struck a deep, jagged crack right at the good-length mark. Instead of bouncing, the ball spat violently upward off the ragged edge of the soil, biting the top of his glove before he could even drop his wrists.
Clack.
The ball looped lazily over his shoulder, straight into the waiting hands of Amit at short-leg.
"Howzatt!" the whole inner ring yelled.
The umpire lifted his finger instantly. The overnight batsman was gone for 48 without adding a single run to his score.
Score: 242 for 5.
The tail is out now. No more specialist batsmen. These guys have spent the whole week bowling in the nets. They won’t have any footwork against the scuffed ball.
Sule Gurukul’s number seven, a stocky medium-pacer, walked out with his thigh pad strapped loosely over his trousers. He looked down the pitch at Vinay, his shoulders tense.
He lasted exactly four balls. Terrified of Vinay’s straight arm-ball, he pushed his bat blindly out into the fourth-stump channel, completely leaving his feet behind in the crease. The scuffed leather caught a thick, clumsy outside edge.
The ball came low and fast, rocketing straight toward my left hip.
I didn’t wait for the sound of the edge. My weight shifted onto my left heel a split second before the wood met the ball, my palms coming together cleanly right at chest height to swallow the leather.
Smack.
"Out!" Sanjay screamed, throwing his hands up.
The umpire nodded, pointing toward the boundary. The number seven walked back without a word. Two balls later, Vinay clean-bowled their number eight with a fast, straight delivery that went straight through his gate before he could even bring his blade down.
Score: 255 for 7.
The number nine batsman swung wildly across the line, sending a thick edge over our heads for two runs. On the next over, Devendra came back from the pavilion end. He hit the base of the off-stump of the number ten, then trapped the number eleven dead in front of his toes with two straight, fast deliveries.
The main umpire pulled the bails off the stumps, checking his watch.
"Innings over!" he shouted.
Sule Gurukul was all out for 269 in 84 overs [M]. They had managed to add only twenty-seven runs to their overnight total.
Inside the tent, the standby boys were tossing fresh water bottles onto the wooden tables and unzipping our kit bags.
"Two hundred and sixty-nine," Nitin panted, ripping his sweaty forehead band off and tossing it into his trunk. "It’s a big total, re. The pitch is totally dry now."
I sat on the corner crate, pulling my heavy cotton canvas batting guards over my shins. My fingers were stiff, the plastic buckles clicking loudly as I pulled them tight.
Two hundred and sixty-nine. On this ground, the outfield is fast. If we get stuck in a defensive block, the spinners will just land it on the cracks until one ball has my name on it. We have to keep the scoreboard moving.
Achrekar sir walked into the tent, holding his brass cup of tea. The chatter among the boys stopped instantly. He didn’t look at Nitin or the senior spinners. He walked straight over to my box, his heavy leather sandals scraping against the dirt floor.
He stood right over me, his face flat behind his thick glasses.
"The total is big," Achrekar sir said, his voice dropping to a quiet whisper. "We have forty-five minutes before the lunch bell. You and Kamlesh are walking out now."
I looked up, adjusting my arm guard. "Sir, the quicks will bowl short early on."
"Let them bowl," Achrekar sir said, cutting me off with a sharp wave of his pen. "Your job is to play for the draw. You do not look at the boundary ropes today, Kabir. You leave everything outside off-stump. You bury your bat next to your pad and you stand there until evening. If I see you lifting the ball into the air, I will pull you out of the line-up. Understand?"
I looked down at the frayed grip of my bat, my jaw tightening. The old man wanted me to crawl into a shell and bury the game in a dead defensive block. But blocking blindly on a cracking day-two pitch was a trap. The cracks would only get wider as the sun came out. Survival meant finding runs.
I looked back up at him and gave a short, firm nod. "Understood, Sir."
"Go," he said, turning his back to check the scorecard ledger.
At 11:00 AM, Kamlesh and I walked out onto the grass. The sun was directly ahead of us, burning through the midday haze and turning the outfield into a white glare.
Sule Gurukul’s opening fast bowler, Kulkarni, was already at the top of his mark. He was throwing the hard red ball from hand to hand, his eyes locked straight onto my frame. He looked furious after their lower-order collapse.
I took my guard at the striker’s end. "Sir, leg-stump."
"Line is correct. Play," the umpire said, stepping back into position.
I dropped into my stance, keeping my weight balanced on the balls of my feet.
[Tendulkar Sync: 17.7%]
The blue text updated quietly in the corner of my eye. The familiar blueprint of Sachin’s balance settled into my shoulders, but my legs were still humming with a dull ache from the morning fielding session.
Watch the release. Don’t chase the speed. Just survive the first half hour.
Kulkarni ran in, his heavy stride shaking the hard dirt near the crease. He loaded up side-on and fired a short delivery straight toward my chest. The ball looked tiny against the gray background of the sightscreen, rushing at my ribs.
I didn’t flinch. I let my back foot slide slightly toward the stumps, tucked my elbows tight against my ribs, and used a soft vertical blade to drop the ball straight into the dirt at my feet.
Thud.
"Good pace, Kulkarni! Keep him back!" the Sule Gurukul slips shouted, clapping their hands.
For the first thirty-six balls, I stuck to the defensive script. I didn’t play an aggressive stroke. When Kulkarni bowled short, I dropped my head under my shoulder and let the ball sail past. When their left-arm seamer targeted the fourth-stump channel, I lifted my arms high, letting the leather whistle through to the keeper.
My score crawled. One run. Two runs. By the end of the eighth over, I had ground out exactly 13 runs off 36 balls [M], entirely through defensive nudges and tight leg-byes.
But I had finally found the rhythm of the pitch. The bounce was true, and Kulkarni was starting to tire, his shoulder dropping by a fraction during his release.
He’s getting frustrated because I’m not edging it. He’s going to overcompensate and bowl fuller to find the pads. That’s the gap.
In the tenth over, Kulkarni ran in, his face dark with sweat. He tried to bowl an inswinging yorker, but he overpitched it, delivering a half-volley right on the off-stump line.
I didn’t swing with wild power. I just leaned my left shoulder forward, met the ball cleanly right under my nose, and let the face of the bat flow through a straight on-drive.
Smack.
The ball traveled along the ground, flashing right past Kulkarni’s ankles before he could even drop his hands. The mid-on fielder didn’t even move. The ball hit the iron boundary fence with a loud clang.
"Shot, Kabir!" Nitin yelled from the tent, standing up.
On the boundary line, Achrekar sir just stared, his hands tucked deep into his pockets.
Two balls later, their left-armer tried to pull his length back, bowling a tight delivery wide of off-stump. I stayed balanced on my back foot, opened the face of the blade by two degrees at the exact microsecond of impact, and executed a back-foot punch right through the gap between point and cover.
The ball rocketed across the grass, hitting the ropes for another boundary.
The Sule Gurukul captain started shouting, waving his arms to push his cover fielders deep to protect the boundary line.
The inner ring is breaking. Now the singles are open.
For the final two overs before lunch, I turned over the strike, tapping the ball into the empty spaces and running hard singles to keep Kamlesh out of the line of fire.
The main umpire finally looked at his watch and raised his hands.
"Lunch!"
We walked back toward the canvas tent under the hot sun, our bats tucked under our arms. The scoreboard at the lunch break read 46 Runs / 0 Wickets for Shardashram in 11 overs. Kamlesh was unbeaten on 14*, and I was on 28* Not Out off 48 balls [M].
As I reached the boundary line, Achrekar sir was standing right by the equipment box, sipping his tea. He didn’t say anything as I walked past him to unstrap my pads, but his eyes followed the red dirt marks on the face of my bat.
I dropped my kit on the bench and reached into my bag for my tiffin box.
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