Free Web NovelChapter 95: Pressure Increases
The first article appeared before sunrise.
Sahil didn’t see it.
The second appeared an hour later.
He missed that one too.
By the time he woke up, stretched lazily, and reached for his phone, there were already seven different cricket pages talking about him.
Seven.
For a district cricketer, that number was absurd.
He discovered that fact while sitting on the edge of his bed, still half asleep.
His phone buzzed.
Then buzzed again.
And again.
And again.
The notification bar looked completely broken.
---
Kangra Cricket Updates
"61(29) in the Championship Opener!"*
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Himachal Youth Cricket
"Sahil Choudhary announces himself on the biggest stage."
---
District Cricket Hub
"The district’s most dangerous finisher delivers again."
---
Sahil blinked.
Then blinked again.
For a moment he wondered if someone else shared his name.
That seemed more reasonable.
---
His phone vibrated again.
A message from Danish.
---
"Congratulations."
---
Another.
---
"You’re officially a headache."
---
Another.
---
"Opposition captains hate you."
---
Sahil laughed despite himself.
Then opened one of the cricket pages.
The post featured a photograph from yesterday’s match.
Bat raised.
Crowd behind him.
Score displayed beneath.
---
SAHIL CHOUDHARY
KANGRA DISTRICT U-19
61* (29)
5 Fours
5 Sixes
Strike Rate: 210.34
---
Below it sat hundreds of comments.
Far more than he expected.
---
"Absolute finisher."
"That innings changed the match."
"Selectors definitely noticed."
"Future state player?"
"This guy keeps showing up in pressure matches."
"Best young power hitter in district cricket."
---
His eyes stopped.
---
Future state player?
---
The comment had nearly two hundred likes.
Dozens of replies.
Entire discussions underneath.
People arguing.
Comparing players.
Debating selections.
---
Sahil locked the screen.
Immediately.
Almost instinctively.
---
The words felt dangerous.
---
Future state player.
---
The phrase sounded exciting.
The phrase sounded tempting.
The phrase also sounded like the exact thing the coach had warned them about.
---
Dreams.
Expectations.
Distractions.
---
The championship wasn’t over.
One innings meant nothing.
Not really.
Yet the internet rarely cared about reality.
---
The internet cared about momentum.
---
And right now?
Momentum belonged entirely to him.
---
Training started later that afternoon.
The district ground buzzed with unusual energy.
Not because of an upcoming match.
Because everybody had seen the articles.
---
The moment Sahil entered through the gate, two academy kids immediately recognized him.
---
"That’s him."
---
"The six-hitter."
---
"The championship guy."
---
Sahil kept walking.
Pretending not to hear.
Pretending it felt normal.
It didn’t.
---
Inside the dressing room things became worse.
Much worse.
---
Danish stood on top of a bench.
Again.
Nobody knew why.
Nobody asked anymore.
---
"Ladies and gentlemen!"
---
The room groaned collectively.
---
"Our local celebrity has arrived."
---
A towel hit him in the face.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop him.
---
"Please welcome the future state player."
---
The room immediately exploded.
---
Kabir laughed.
Several bowlers started clapping sarcastically.
Someone whistled.
Another player pretended to ask for an autograph.
---
Sahil dropped his kit bag beside the locker.
---
"I hate all of you."
---
"No you don’t."
---
"Mostly Danish."
---
"That’s fair."
---
The laughter continued.
Yet beneath the jokes, Sahil noticed something.
The atmosphere had changed.
Subtly.
But noticeably.
---
People were watching him differently.
---
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
---
The same way opponents had started watching him differently.
The same way spectators had started watching him differently.
---
Recognition.
---
The word sounded nice until it arrived.
Then it became pressure.
---
The coach entered moments later.
Silence followed immediately.
---
The older man didn’t speak right away.
Instead, he placed several printed pages on the table.
Then stepped aside.
---
Curiosity spread instantly.
Players leaned forward.
---
Several cricket articles.
---
Championship reports.
Player ratings.
Match analysis.
---
And Sahil’s name appeared on almost every page.
---
The room became quieter.
---
Much quieter.
---
The coach finally folded his arms.
---
"Read them."
---
Nobody moved for several seconds.
---
Then players began scanning through the reports.
---
One article called him the tournament’s breakout player.
Another called him Kangra’s biggest threat.
A third questioned whether he could continue performing under pressure.
---
The final article carried a headline that immediately caught everyone’s attention.
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FUTURE STATE PLAYER?
---
The room collectively turned toward Sahil.
---
He immediately regretted existing.
---
Danish failed to suppress his laughter.
---
Kabir wasn’t even trying.
---
The coach waited for the reactions to settle.
Then spoke.
---
"Do you know what happens after a good performance?"
---
Silence.
---
The older man pointed toward the articles.
---
"Expectations."
---
Nobody interrupted.
---
"One good innings creates attention."
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Another pause.
---
"Two good innings create pressure."
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The room remained completely silent.
---
Then the coach pointed directly at Sahil.
---
"Three good innings create targets."
---
The words hung in the air.
Heavy.
Sharp.
Important.
---
The coach continued.
---
"Yesterday nobody knew how to bowl to him."
---
His finger tapped the articles.
---
"Today every opposition analyst is studying him."
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Silence.
---
Every player understood.
---
The sixes.
The rankings.
The Viral Match.
The championship innings.
---
They had consequences.
---
Success always did.
---
And for the first time, Sahil realized something uncomfortable.
---
Scoring runs had been difficult.
Staying successful might be harder.
---
Outside the dressing room, the practice nets waited.
The championship continued.
The selectors continued watching.
The articles continued spreading.
---
And somewhere online—
more people were asking the same question.
---
Future state player?
---
The problem wasn’t answering it.
The problem was proving it.
The first sign that things had changed appeared three days later.
Not during training.
Not on social media.
Not in the newspapers.
On a whiteboard.
A simple whiteboard inside Hamirpur’s dressing room.
Sahil never saw it.
But he heard about it.
Because district cricket had one universal rule.
Nothing remained secret for long.
---
The story reached Kangra through one of the academy coaches.
Apparently Hamirpur’s coaching staff had reviewed footage from the championship opener.
Not unusual.
Every serious team did that.
The unusual part was what happened next.
---
They spent nearly twenty minutes discussing one player.
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Sahil Choudhary.
---
Not Aryan.
Not Kangra’s captain.
Not their opening batsmen.
---
Sahil.
---
The information spread through district circles surprisingly quickly.
By the following afternoon, half the Kangra squad knew about it.
By evening, everybody knew.
---
Including Danish.
Which meant everybody else had no choice but to hear about it repeatedly.
---
"They’re studying you."
---
Sahil continued putting on his pads.
---
"So?"
---
Danish stared.
---
"So?"
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"Yes."
---
"That’s terrifying."
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"Why?"
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The left-hander looked genuinely offended.
---
"Because bowlers thinking is dangerous."
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Kabir immediately burst out laughing.
---
Several teammates followed.
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Even Sahil smiled.
---
Danish pointed dramatically around the room.
---
"Mock me all you want."
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Then he pointed directly toward Sahil.
---
"Every team in this tournament has now watched his innings."
---
The room gradually became quieter.
---
Because beneath the joke, there was truth.
---
A lot of truth.
---
The championship opener had changed things.
Before that match, bowlers respected Sahil.
Now they planned for him.
---
Those weren’t the same thing.
---
The coach arrived shortly afterward.
As usual, silence followed.
---
The older man carried several folders.
Reports.
Statistics.
Match notes.
---
He placed them on the table.
Then looked around the room.
---
"Quarterfinal is finished."
---
Nobody spoke.
---
"Forget it."
---
Again, nobody spoke.
---
Because everyone knew what came next.
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The semifinal.
---
The coach walked toward the tactics board.
Pinned to it was a photograph of their next opponent.
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MANDI DISTRICT U-19
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The room immediately sharpened.
---
Mandi.
---
One of the strongest teams in the championship.
One of the favorites.
One of the few teams Kangra genuinely respected.
---
The coach pointed toward several field diagrams.
---
Then toward a batting analysis chart.
---
Finally—
toward Sahil.
---
"Congratulations."
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The word sounded strange coming from him.
---
The coach nodded toward the chart.
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"They’ve created three separate plans for you."
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Silence.
---
Actual silence.
---
Several players turned immediately.
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The coach didn’t smile.
---
Didn’t joke.
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Didn’t exaggerate.
---
"They’re targeting your leg side."
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Another pause.
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"They’ll bowl wide yorkers."
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A second pause.
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"They’ve studied your scoring areas."
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The room remained completely still.
---
Because suddenly everything became real.
---
Success.
Recognition.
Rankings.
Articles.
---
They all sounded nice.
---
Until opposition teams started preparing specifically for you.
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Then they became responsibility.
---
The coach folded his arms.
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"What does that mean?"
---
Nobody answered.
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The older man pointed toward Sahil.
---
"It means they respect him."
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Silence.
---
Then his voice hardened.
---
"It also means they’re looking for weaknesses."
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The lesson lingered long after the meeting ended.
---
Outside, the practice nets waited.
The afternoon sun hung above the district ground.
The usual sounds filled the air.
Bat striking ball.
Coaches shouting.
Fielders calling.
---
Yet everything felt slightly different.
---
Because for the first time—
Sahil wasn’t preparing for bowlers.
---
Bowlers were preparing for him.
---
The realization followed him throughout training.
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Every net session.
Every throwdown.
Every practice scenario.
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The pressure no longer came from proving he belonged.
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The pressure came from proving he deserved to stay.
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Later that evening, after training finished, he sat alone near the boundary rope.
The stadium had grown quiet.
Most players had already left.
The setting sun painted the outfield orange.
Long shadows stretched across the grass.
---
His phone vibrated.
---
Another notification.
---
Then another.
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Then another.
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Curiosity eventually won.
---
He opened one of the articles.
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FIVE PLAYERS STATE SELECTORS ARE WATCHING
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His name appeared third.
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Not first.
Not second.
Third.
---
Yet somehow that felt more significant than the rankings.
---
Because this wasn’t written by fans.
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This was written by journalists.
People who covered district cricket every day.
People who talked to coaches.
Selectors.
Administrators.
---
Below the article sat hundreds of comments.
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"Future state player?"
---
"Most dangerous finisher in the tournament."
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"Needs consistency."
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"One innings isn’t enough."
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"Could play for Himachal soon."
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"Let’s see him against Mandi first."
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That final comment caught his attention.
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Let’s see him against Mandi first.
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The statement felt fair.
---
Brutal.
But fair.
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One innings proved potential.
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Consistency proved quality.
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A familiar blue glow appeared.
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The system.
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The screen expanded slowly.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DISTRICT REPUTATION UPDATED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recognition Level
VERY HIGH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Titles
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
District Finisher
Top Six Hitter
Championship Performer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Effect
Opposition Preparation Increased
Pressure Increased
Expectation Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The notification remained visible.
---
Then new text appeared.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WARNING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Future Performance Will Receive
Increased Scrutiny
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Consistency Recommended
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sahil stared for several moments.
---
Then laughed softly.
---
Even the system had started reminding him.
---
Pressure.
---
Everywhere.
---
Coaches.
Media.
Opponents.
Selectors.
Fans.
The system.
---
Everyone wanted to know the same thing.
---
Was the opening match real?
Or was it just one great innings?
---
The answer couldn’t be given through interviews.
Couldn’t be given through articles.
Couldn’t be given through comments.
---
It could only be given one way.
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Runs.
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More runs.
---
The evening breeze drifted across the empty stadium.
Somewhere beyond Kangra, beyond rankings and articles, the semifinal waited.
Mandi waited.
The strongest bowling attack in the tournament waited.
---
And for the first time since the championship began—
Sahil felt genuinely challenged.
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A slow smile appeared on his face.
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Because deep down, he had always loved one thing.
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Proving people wrong.
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And Mandi was about to give him the perfect opportunity.
--
