Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Training Session! North Zone
Kulkarni stood at the top of his mark for ten seconds, his face dark red as he stared at the back net where my straight drive had just bounced. He didn’t look at his captain or the selectors. He just took a deep breath, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and walked back to his starting line.
He’s pissed off now. He’s going to use all his speed to hit my ribs. Don’t look for the drive. Just drop the wrists if it’s short.
Vasu Paranjape didn’t write anything down. He just leaned forward on his plastic chair, his fingers tapping the wooden clipboard against his knee.
Kulkarni ran in again. His boots hit the white clay with a heavy thud, and he let go of a fast, short delivery that cracked right off the surface, flying straight for my neck grill.
I dropped my weight low, letting the ball whistle past my helmet into the side netting.
The bounce on this track is completely true. No sideways cut.
On the third ball, Kulkarni pulled his length back, keeping it tight on the fourth-stump line. I lifted my arms high, letting it go. On the fourth delivery, he went for a fast inswinger on middle stump. I stepped forward with a short, neat stride and blunted the ball dead into the dirt right under my chin.
Thud.
The fifth ball was another wide delivery, a tired half-volley out of frustration. I stayed back on my rear heel, opened the face of the bat, and punched it straight through the cover netting.
For the next two overs, the selectors rotated the other fast bowlers into Net One. A stocky right-armer from the Eastern zone tried to bowl a heavy length, but his pace was slower than Kulkarni’s. I kept my head down, playing simple, textbook blocks. No fancy shots. No aerial slices. If the ball was wide, I left it. If it was straight, the flat face of my bat met it right in the middle, making that sharp, ringing sound every time.
"Switch nets! Kabir, Net Three! Nitin, Net One!" Coach Kadam shouted, blowing his whistle. Prrt!
I unbuckled my helmet as I walked over to the red soil of Net Three. The ground here was totally dry, with fine red dust sitting on the good-length cracks.
Their primary left-arm spinner, Joshi, was waiting at the crease. He didn’t give me any smiles. He just gripped the scuffed leather ball and tossed it high into the morning air.
The ball is turning from the loam. Don’t wait in the crease for the ball to spit. Reach the pitch of it.
Joshi delivered a slow, looping ball outside off-stump. I used a long, decisive stride, reaching right to the pitch of the bounce to cover the spin before it could hit the cracks, dropping it dead at my toes. For the next two overs, I used my feet, coming down the track to work the turning ball into the empty leg-side spaces for singles.
When the five overs were over, my shirt was completely soaked. I walked out of the net, unbuckling my pads near the gear benches. Vasu Paranjape was looking at his sheet, his pencil making a small dot next to my name. He didn’t say if it was good or bad. He just called the next batsman in.
At 1:30 PM, after all sixteen batsmen had completed their nets, the midday heat was sitting heavy inside the concrete bowl of the stadium. Most of the thirteen-year-olds were sitting on the grass, their shirts unbuttoned, complaining about their blisters.
Prrt!
Coach Kadam blew his whistle hard, standing near the center line. "All thirty-six boys, on the line! White boundary markers! Move your feet!"
The senior boys grumbled, dragging their feet across the grass. To them, fielding was just a boring chore. They stood loosely in the line, their shoulders slumping.
But I stood straight, checking the knot on my shoes. I knew from my past life running the sports shop that selectors look closely at a player’s attitude when they are tired. A lazy fielder is the first person a selector crosses off the list.
"Catching drills first!" Coach Kadam yelled, grabbing a wooden catching bat and a bucket of hard red balls. "Three rows! Six yards apart!"
He started hitting high, swirling skiers into the afternoon sky.
The thirteen-year-olds were clumsy. Their hands were stiff from the heat, and three balls slipped right through their palms onto the grass. One boy from the Western zone stayed on his feet, letting the ball roll past his shoe to the fence.
"Watch the ball, re!" Nitin shouted from the second row, his face serious.
When the ball came toward my sector, it was a high, awkward shot that caught the wind coming off the sea. It drifted quickly to my left. I sprinted three steps sideways, threw my body flat onto the grass, and cupped my palms right above the dirt line to grab it cleanly.
Thud.
I stood up instantly, throwing the ball straight back to the coach’s bucket with a single, quick motion. My white trousers were completely brown from the soil, but my throwing arm felt loose.
Vasu Paranjape was standing by the iron fence, his hands tucked into his pockets, watching my recovery speed. He didn’t make a sound, but his eyes followed my small frame as I moved right back into the catching line, ready for the next one. For forty minutes, while the older boys were gasping and dropping catches, I treated every single return like it was the final ball of a championship match.
The next two days became a long, brutal test of physical endurance.
Coach Kadam didn’t give anyone a break. Every morning at 9:00 AM started the exact same way—five full laps around the Wankhede Stadium boundary rope under a burning sun.
"Keep running, re! Don’t walk!" Kadam would scream, riding his bicycle along the grass line while his whistle blew continuously.
By the third lap, the thirteen-year-olds were completely breaking down. Their heavy bodies couldn’t handle the continuous running on the hard grass. Two of their fast bowlers were limping, their shins hurting from the impact, their breathing ragged and loud.
My legs were small, so I had to take twice as many steps as them. My chest felt like it was burning every time I took a breath.
Don’t look at the stands. Just look at Nitin’s back shoe. Keep the rhythm steady. Don’t stop.
I relied on my modern recovery knowledge between the sessions. While the other kids rushed to the cooler to gulp down liters of ice-cold water—which only made their stomachs cramp up during the drills—I took small, controlled sips. After the running was finished, I stayed on my feet, doing deep hamstring and core stretches under the banyan tree to keep the muscles from completely locking up.
By Wednesday afternoon, the selectors had run us through every possible variation—making the batsmen face left-arm seamers from wide angles, forcing the spinners to bowl thirty-ball unchanged spells into the rough, and running continuous back-to-back sliding drills in the deep outfield.
The older boys were completely exhausted, their bat swing slowing down, their feet remaining stuck in the crease because their minds were completely drained. But my engine kept running. My updated 18.0% templates allowed me to conserve my energy, using only the necessary movements to block the good balls and hit the stumps with my throws.
Right at 4:15 PM on Wednesday, Coach Kadam blew his final whistle of the selection camp.
"Trials over!" Kadam shouted, packing his clipboards into his leather bag. "The final fifteen-man North Zone squad will be pasted on the MCA notice board tomorrow morning at nine. Go home."
The boys didn’t cheer. They just dropped their helmets into their bags, their faces covered in dust and sweat, looking completely downcast from the three days of pure exhaustion.
I lifted my canvas kit bag onto my sore shoulder, my square-toed bat clicking against my helmet shell as Nitin and I walked toward the main exit gate. My body was completely tired, and my fingers were stiff, but the work was left on the grass. Tomorrow morning, the list would tell us who survived the cut.
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