Free Web NovelChapter 11: Chapter 11:
I pulled my helmet down until the plastic grille lined up with my eyes, tucked the bat under my arm, and walked onto the main field.
Kamlesh was walking right beside me, his sneakers clicking against the grass. Azad Maidan was completely packed with school teams shouting and warming up on different pitches across the same ground.
"Kabir," Kamlesh muttered, his hands tightening around his handle. He kept his eyes on the pitch. "The keeper... that’s Salman. He’s their best senior under-14 glovesman. Don’t listen to anything he says from behind."
"Just keep your walk normal," I said, looking straight ahead. "Don’t rush."
The Anjuman-I-Islam fielders were already moving to their positions. Their white kits were spotless, and they moved with the slow confidence of a team that had held the shield for three straight years.
I reached the striker’s end, stepped over the crease, and stood face-to-face with the umpire. The turf wicket was a flat, dull brown, showing dark, damp patches from the morning dew.
"Sir, leg-stump please," I said, holding my bat vertically against my shoe.
The umpire leaned over to check the line. "Move it left... a bit more... right there. That’s leg, son."
I used the metal screw on the bottom of my handle to scratch a deep line into the dirt. I stepped back, tapped the blade inside the crease, and checked the field.
Anjuman’s captain had set a completely attacking ring because of my height. The slip cordon was packed. First slip was barely six yards behind the keeper, and second slip stood right next to him, crouching low with his hands on his thighs. They had a silly mid-off standing less than ten yards from my face, and a short-leg sitting right in the dirt on the leg side, wearing heavy plastic shin guards. The rest of the inner ring had a backward point, a short cover, and a mid-on. The outfield was completely empty. They didn’t care about saving runs; they just wanted a quick catch.
Salman, the keeper, clapped his leather gloves together hard. Smack.
"Look at the bat, re," Salman laughed out loud. "The wood is bigger than his leg. Baig, don’t bowl too fast, the child will run home."
The first slip snickered, kicking a loose clod of dirt away. "Bowl straight, Baig. Let’s finish this before the lunch break."
I ignored the noise, locking my fingers into a tight V-grip on the handle. I dropped my center of gravity, keeping my weight perfectly balanced on the balls of my feet. The Sachin template inside my head was just a quiet memory of posture in my shoulders. I knew exactly where my off-stump was.
At the far end, Baig reached his mark. He was thirteen, tall, with long, strong legs. He turned around, rubbed the new red leather ball hard against his right thigh, and looked down the pitch.
He ran in.
On the boundary line, sitting on a cheap folding chair under a canvas awning, sat Milind Rege. He was a veteran talent scout for the Mumbai junior selection committee, holding a black notebook on his knees. He had a half-eaten batata vada on a newspaper beside him, but he wasn’t touching it.
"Harpal," Rege said, staring straight at the pitch as my dad walked up to stand beside him. "That’s your boy?"
"Yes, Sir," my dad said, his hands deep in his pockets. "Kabir."
Rege clicked his pen. "He’s too small, Harpal. Achrekar is making a mistake. Putting an eight-year-old against Baig on a damp morning? If the boy takes a hit to the fingers, his confidence is gone. Look at Baig’s shoulders. He’s throwing everything into it."
"Let him bowl, Sir," my dad said. "The boy needs to see real pace."
Rege shook his head, writing in the margin of his book. Shardashram No. 1: Kabir Singh (Age 8). "If he gets out playing a wild slog, I’m crossing his name off the list. We don’t have room for joke trials."
Baig was sprinting now, his spikes tearing up the grass.
As he reached the crease, I watched his front shoulder drop violently toward the dirt right before release. He was straining his upper body, trying to force extra bounce out of the damp pitch.
Bouncer.
The ball left his hand with a heavy grunt. It pitched short on the middle-stump line. Because the turf was sticky, the ball rose sharply, aiming straight for the peak of my helmet.
A normal eight-year-old would have panicked, thrown his hands up, or fallen backward.
But my eyes had traced the line early. I didn’t flinch. I just bent my knees, dropped my head three inches, and let the red ball whistle safely over my left shoulder straight into the keeper’s gloves.
Smack.
"Oye!" the short-leg fielder shouted, jumping up.
The crowd near the boundary fence let out a low murmur. A few old men reading the Marathi newspapers turned their heads to look.
"He didn’t even blink," a standby boy in our tent muttered.
Baig stopped at the end of his run, his face completely red. He stared at me, breathing hard. I didn’t look back at him. I just stood up straight, tapped my bat twice, and took my stance again.
The second ball was faster. Baig ran in angry, pitching it full on the fourth-stump line—just a couple of inches outside off-stump. A classic trap ball, waiting for a greedy drive.
I stepped across with my left foot, planting it right beside the bounce. I lifted my arms high, pulling the bat away cleanly, and let the ball pass by into the keeper’s webbing.
"Good leave, Kabir!" Kamlesh called out from the other end.
On the third ball, Baig changed lines, firing a quick delivery straight at my front pad on leg-stump. I didn’t try to flick it toward the leg-side boundary. I kept my head perfectly still, brought the bat down vertically beside my pad, and blocked it straight into the turf.
Thud.
The ball stopped dead, rolling just an inch away from my shoe. I didn’t look for a single. I stayed inside the crease.
By the fourth ball, the Anjuman fielders were getting annoyed. The silly mid-off took two steps closer, standing less than eight yards away.
"He’s scared to play a shot, Baig!" Salman yelled. "He’s just standing like a stick! Attack the stumps!"
Baig steamed in, throwing his weight into a fast, skidding yorker aimed right at the base of my middle stump.
My hands moved by habit. The willow blade came down straight, meeting the ball right under my nose. It made a sharp click sound across the ground. The ball stopped dead on the line. I picked it up with my left hand and tossed it back to Baig. He grabbed it and marched back, his jaw clenched.
The fifth ball was another off-stump delivery—full and moving away slightly in the wind. I stepped across, kept my shoulders straight, and let it go past without moving the bat.
Milind Rege, sitting on his chair, stopped his pen. He didn’t write anything. He just stared at my front foot. "He knows his off-stump, Harpal. An eight-year-old doesn’t have that judgment. He didn’t even twitch on that leave."
"He’s been practicing on the hanging ball for six months, Sir," my dad said.
The final ball was a slower delivery, trying to trick my timing. I saw the change in his wrist early. I waited inside the crease, let it pitch, and blocked it back down the track with a soft defensive punch.
The over was a maiden. Zero runs, zero wickets.
For the next four overs, the match became completely quiet.
Kamlesh faced their medium-pacer from the other end, scraping three quick singles through the gaps, but every time I came back to the striker’s end, the scoreboard didn’t move.
The Anjuman bowlers tried everything. They brought on a right-armer who bowled a negative line wide outside the off-stump, trying to make me chase. I let four of them go past without moving my shoulders. When he got annoyed and bowled straight, my bat met the ball right under my nose, deadening the leather into the dirt.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The crowd around the boundary tent was growing now. Senior players from the under-16 squads and local selectors were walking over, standing three-deep behind the iron fence to watch. They had come to see an eight-year-old get destroyed, but they were watching a wall.
"The kid has zero ego," an old coach with a cane muttered, leaning against a tree. "Most kids see a crowd and want to hit a six to show off. He’s played twenty balls, zero runs, but his head hasn’t moved an inch."
By the end of the fifth over I faced, my score was exactly 0 runs off 24 balls.
My shirt was wet with sweat, and my legs were aching from the constant lunges, but my focus didn’t slip. The Anjuman fielders weren’t laughing anymore. The slips stopped talking, and their captain was pacing around the ring, looking worried. They had thrown their best pace at an eight-year-old, and they hadn’t even created a half-chance.
I walked down the pitch between overs, meeting Kamlesh in the middle. He was wiping his face, looking at the big crowd on the boundary.
"They’re getting frustrated, Kabir," Kamlesh whispered. "Baig is arguing with his captain about the field."
I took a breath, looking at the dry white cracks starting to open on the grass under the hot sun. "Let them argue. The ball isn’t swinging now, and their shoulders are tired. From the next over... we start looking for the gaps."
I turned around, walked back to the crease, and took my stance.
