Chapter 38: Chapter 38:
The brass coin dropped onto the hard turf of the Islam Gymkhana pitch with a small click. Nitin looked down at the ground, then looked back at our wooden bench near the sea wall. He had lost the toss. The West Zone captain didn’t even look back at his team huddle. He just pointed his thumb right at the pitch and told the umpire they would bat first.
Assistant Coach Kadam blew his brass whistle once, his face dark from the sun. "North Zone, take the field. Devendra, open the bowling from the sea end. Move your legs."
I walked out to extra-cover, standing seven yards inside the white rope. The air smelled of salt from the ocean waves hitting the rocks just fifty yards behind the pavilion. The pitch was flat, white, and completely hard. It was a batsman’s paradise for a three-day match.
Eighty-five overs of fielding under this hot breeze. My legs are already tight from last week’s trials. Just stay low in the circle and stop the ground drives.
Devendra took the brand-new red ball, ran in from the sea end, and fired the first delivery of the match right down the off-stump line.
Their tall left-handed opener, a boy named Sharma, didn’t try to whack it. He lunged forward with a straight bat, keeping his head right over the bounce, and blocked it dead into the grass.
Thud.
"Good line, Devendra!" Sanjay shouted from behind the bails, catching the ball at waist height. "Keep it there!"
On the second ball, Devendra dropped his length back a little bit, bowling into the fourth-stump corridor. Sharma stayed on his back foot, lifted his arms high, and let the leather pass cleanly into the gloves. The third ball was fuller, swinging inward toward the leg stump. Sharma adjusted his wrists at the last millisecond, turning the face of his bat to tuck it through the empty mid-wicket grass for a double.
The score moved to 2 for 0.
On the fifth ball of the over, Devendra missed his line completely, spraying a fast delivery down the leg side. Sharma didn’t swing hard; he just used the pace of the ball, flicking it off his pads through the empty fine-leg region. The ball traveled fast across the cut grass, hitting the boundary boards with a sharp clang.
The first over finished with 6 runs.
By the tenth over, the match turned into a slow, tiring grind for our bowlers. The ball wasn’t moving off the seam at all. West Zone’s second opener, a short boy named Vohra, took guard against our senior off-spinner, Vinay.
Vinay ran in, tossing the leather high to find some turn. Vohra watched the flight, took a big stride forward, and deadened the ball right under his nose.
Click.
On the third ball, Vinay went flatter, darting it straight down the middle-stump line. Vohra anticipated the change. He didn’t lift the ball; he just waited for the bounce and executed a crisp, ground-level cover drive that flashed right past my left hand at cover. I dived flat, my knees hitting the dirt, but the ball was too fast, hitting the boundary rope for four.
"Chase it, Kamlesh!" Nitin yelled from mid-off, but the ball was already dead against the rail.
By the 11:30 AM lunch break, the West Zone openers had put on exactly 120 for no loss in 28 overs. They weren’t playing wild shots; they were just wearing down our bowlers, taking singles off the first and fourth balls of every over to keep the scoreboard ticking.
We walked into the changing room for the forty-minute lunch break in complete silence. My whites were already covered in green grass stains and red dust from my diving stops at cover.
At 12:10 PM, the afternoon sun was directly overhead, making the ground hot. Standing at cover next to the pitch was pure torture for my legs. Every time I squatted down, my thighs flared up with a sharp burning pain.
The runs kept bleeding through the afternoon session. 180 for no loss. Then 240.
In the fiftieth over, Devendra finally found a breakthrough, bowling a fast yorker that hit Vohra’s toe for an LBW on 84. But their number three batsman walked out and kept the same grinding discipline going. He faced Vinay carefully, blocking the straight balls into the grass and leaving anything wide.
Right at 4:20 PM, with the score sitting at a massive 382 for 6 in 85 overs, their captain hit a straight boundary off General Spinner Manish to reach his century. He looked toward the pavilion balcony, raised his bat quickly, and made a sharp declaration signal with his gloves to catch our openers off guard before the day ended.
The main umpire pulled the bails off the stumps.
"Innings declared!" he shouted.
But the umpires checked their light meters against the evening sky and called for Stumps right away. Day One was finished, and we were facing a mountain of runs.
On next morning at 9:15 AM, the dressing room inside the gymkhana pavilion was dead silent.
I sat on my canvas kit box, reaching into my bag to pull out my batting gloves. Sunil was already tying his helmet strap near the locker door, his face pale as he looked out at the fresh red SG leather ball sitting on the umpire’s table.
Chief Selector Vasu Paranjape walked into the room, his heavy leather sandals scraping against the wooden floorboards. He walked straight over to my corner, his sharp eyes narrowing behind his thick glasses.
He reached down, put his heavy palm straight onto my shoulder guard, and pushed me back down onto the crate.
"Pads off, Kabir," Vasu Paranjape said, his voice flat and quiet. "Sunil and Kamlesh are opening the batting today. You are resting your legs on the bench. You will bat down at number seven."
I froze, my fingers still wrapped around the cotton pad straps. "Sir, the new ball is fresh. I can blunt the shine—"
"No," Vasu sir cut me off, his voice final. He didn’t explain his strategy to the room. He just clicked his pen closed and stuffed his clipboard into his pocket. "You spent six hours running in the sun yesterday. Your eight-year-old, your muscles are stiff. If you open today and get out for a cheap score against their fresh quicks, our whole middle order goes into a panic hole. You sit there, rest your body, and save your bat for later. Move."
I unbuckled the guards slowly, nodding my head. "Yes, Sir."
Nitin looked over from his locker, his mouth open in surprise, but he didn’t dare question the Chief Selector. The team was completely confused by the batting order shift. They didn’t see the selector’s long-term chess move—he knew we couldn’t catch up to 382 on a flat track, and he was holding me back as the ultimate defensive shield for the final day’s survival.
At 9:30 AM, Kamlesh and Sunil walked out to open our first innings.
The West Zone fast bowlers used the early morning sweat on the grass to find sharp, late outswing. Kamlesh managed to battle through the opening burst, scoring a solid 42 through gritty leg-side nudges, and Nitin ground out a painful half-century off 120 balls.
But the pressure of the 382 total was too heavy for our middle order. Every time a dot ball was bowled, our batsmen grew greedy, reaching away from their bodies to force boundaries through the packed off-side field.
I sat on my canvas kit box all afternoon in my clean whites, my custom square-toed bat resting untouched against my knees. I had to watch helplessly as Amit got clean-bowled by a straight seamer, and our number five batsman threw his wicket away by lofting a catch straight to long-off right after lunch.
The wickets fell regularly through the afternoon heat, the pitch throwing up small puffs of red dust whenever their spinners landed the ball on the good-length marks.
Right at 4:25 PM, Devendra tried to play a wild sweep shot against their left-arm spinner, missed the line completely, and had his off-stump knocked out of the ground.
Clack.
"All out!" the main umpire called out.
Our first innings was completely bundled out for 317 All Out in 74 overs [M]. We had batted with grit, but we had fallen short of their total by exactly 65 runs [M].
The West Zone players ran off the field, cheering loudly and slapping their captain’s back. They had a solid first-innings lead in their pockets, and the match was moving rapidly into the final day.
I stood near the boundary rope, unzipping my kit bag to put my bat away as the long shadows of the stadium grandstands covered the grass. My uniform was still spotless and white, my hands uncalloused from the day’s play, but my heart felt heavy. The first two days were finished, we were trailing by sixty-five runs, and tomorrow morning, the final battle for survival was going to begin.
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