Free Web NovelChapter 29: Chapter 29: A Final Lost
The Monday lunch break went by without anyone making a sound. The dressing room fans spun slowly, pushing the humid air over ten boys who sat with their heads down. Nobody was wiping the red clay off their trousers. Kamlesh sat on the edge of the bench, staring at the floor between his leather boots, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.
"Two hundred and forty-seven runs just to make them bat again," Nitin said, his voice flat as he picked up his batting gloves. "The pitch is totally gone. The cracks look like gaps in a broken pavement."
I pulled my thigh guard tight, clicking the plastic buckles into place.
The ball is brand new for the second innings. It’s going to skip and fly off the hard soil. If I try to survive by just blocking, they will circle me with catchers until one ball shoots low.
"Kamlesh, Kabir, let’s go," Achrekar sir barked from the doorway, not stepping inside the room. He didn’t look at the scoreboard ledger. He just adjusted his white linen cap and walked toward the boundary rope.
We walked down the stone steps at 12:10 PM. The stadium stood tall and gray all around the green field, completely quiet under the midday glare.
Kulkarni was already waiting at the pavilion end with the fresh red SG leather ball. He looked fresh after the break, his fingers spinning the ball against his trousers as he watched my small frame cross the white line.
I took my guard from the umpire. "Sir, leg-stump."
"Line is correct. Play," the umpire said, stepping back.
[Tendulkar Sync: 18.0%]
The blue notification bar updated quickly in the corner of my eye before fading out. The mechanical weight of Sachin’s balance settled back into my knees, dropping my stance low.
Over One. Watch the seam. Don’t let the fresh shine fool you.
Kulkarni ran in hard, his heavy boots making a sharp thudding sound against the baked clay. He loaded side-on and unleashed a fast, full-length ball right on the middle-stump line.
The ball hit a small ridge, skidding low and angling sharply into my front shoe. I didn’t reach forward with a loose bat. I trusted the template grid, let my back heel slide slightly, and dropped the blade vertically to deaden the leather right under my chin.
Thud.
"Good pace, Kulkarni!" the IES New English keeper yelled, his gloves clapping together behind my ears. "He’s scared to move his front foot!"
The second ball was identical. I blocked it straight back to the bowler’s hands. On the third ball, Kulkarni pulled his length back, firing a heavy delivery outside off-stump that flew past my shoulder at chest height. I dropped my wrists, letting the extra bounce carry it safely to the keeper’s webbing.
The fourth ball was the error. Kulkarni tried to bowl a quick outswinger but lost his wrist release, spraying the ball full and wide down the leg-side.
I didn’t swing with wild power. I just stayed balanced on my rear foot, rolled my wrists over the bounce, and clipped it cleanly through the empty fine-leg grass. The ball traveled fast over the thick turf, hitting the boundary boards with a loud clang.
The first over finished with 4 runs on the board.
The trouble started from the opposite end in the very next over. Deshmukh took the new ball, using the midday breeze to find a sharp, late outswing.
Kamlesh took guard, his shoulders high and stiff under his shirt.
Deshmukh ran in, delivering a fast ball on a good length that pitched on middle-stump. Kamlesh tried to push it straight down to mid-on, but the leather caught a wet patch of sweat on the pitch, nipped away late, and beat his outside edge by two inches.
"Watch the movement, Kamlesh!" Nitin called out from the balcony stairs.
Kamlesh didn’t look back. He wiped his face with his sleeve, his eyes wide as he fixed his helmet grill.
On the fourth ball of the over, Deshmukh bowled a shorter delivery wide of the off-stump channel. It was a clear invitation to cut. Kamlesh broke under the pressure of the 247 deficit. He threw his hands out wildly, his feet completely stuck in the white dirt, his bat working miles away from his chest line.
The ball took a thick, flying outside edge.
Clack.
The leather flew high and fast, straight to their first slip fielder, who didn’t even have to move his heels. He just caught it cleanly at eye height, throwing the ball into the air with a loud cheer.
Kamlesh stood there for three seconds, his bat still stuck in his follow-through. He had gotten a five-ball duck in the first innings, and now he was out for a four-ball duck in the second. [1]
Score: 4 Runs / 1 Wicket (1.4 Overs).
Nitin walked out at number three, his face pale as he met me near the non-striker’s crease.
"The ball is moving a lot off the seam, Kabir," Nitin whispered, his hands twitching on his handle grip. "Achrekar sir is watching from the sight-screen fence. We cannot lose another one before the evening session."
"Just play the straight ones, Nitin," I said, my throat feeling dry. "Don’t try to look for runs. We just need to stay there."
For the next ten overs, Nitin and I locked ourselves into a complete defensive grind. The IES New English fielders were loud, crowding around us with three slips, a gully, and a short-leg who stood just six feet from my nose.
Kulkarni ran in hard, targeting my ribs with heavy short deliveries. I dropped my shoulders, letting the bouncers pass over my helmet visor without moving my arms. Whenever Chavan, their off-spinner, came on to bowl from wide of the crease, I lunged forward with a long, disciplined stride to smother the turn before it could hit the cracks.
My score crept up slowly. 15 runs. 25 runs. 35 runs.
By the 2:10 PM tea break, Nitin and I had pushed the score to 82 for 1 in 32 overs. Nitin was on 24* off 82 balls, and I had reached 48* Not Out off 96 balls, hitting four ground boundaries through the point and cover gaps.
The twenty-minute tea session inside the tent was miserable. The standby boys handed us water glasses in silence, none of them talking about the target. The deficit was still 165 runs.
"We just need to bat out the day, Kabir," Nitin muttered, his face covered in red dust. "If we don’t get out by four-thirty, we have a chance tomorrow morning."
I didn’t answer. I just drank my water, my forearms humming from the vibration of the blocks.
We walked back out at 2:30 PM for the final session of Day Three.
IES New English didn’t use pace. Their captain immediately brought on their left-arm orthodox spinner, Joshi, to bowl into the deep spike marks outside my off-stump.
In the thirty-sixth over, I faced Chavan from the pavilion end. He bowled a flat delivery right on the middle-stump line. I leaned forward, opened the face of my bat by two degrees, and drove it smoothly through the extra-cover gap for a double to reach my half-century.
My score bar updated: 50 Runs (104 Balls)*.
But on the very next over, the match collapsed. Nitin faced Joshi from the far end. Joshi tossed the ball high, landing it directly into a deep, crumbling crack on a good length. The ball didn’t bounce at all. It just shot along the dirt like a snake, sliding under Nitin’s defensive bat and striking his rear pad dead in front of the bails.
"Howzatt!" the whole inner ring roared.
The umpire shot his finger into the air. Nitin dropped his head, looking completely downcast as he walked off for 28.
Score: 86 for 2.
Once the captain was gone, the senior middle order completely folded under the weight of the pressure. Amit walked out at number four and lasted only six balls before he tried a risky sweep against the turn, top-edging the ball straight to short-fine-leg for 4. Our number five batsman got clean-bowled two balls later by a straight arm-ball that went through his gate.
Score: 92 for 4.
I have to score fast now. The tail won’t survive the new ball if they take it tomorrow.
On the forty-second over, I reached 53 Runs. Kulkarni came back into the attack, his shirt soaked with red sweat. He bowled a heavy, short delivery wide of off-stump.
I saw the width and went for a back-foot punch through the cover-point gap. But the hard red leather hit a massive, widening crack right before the bounce. Instead of coming onto the bat, the ball spat violently upward off the ragged edge of the soil, biting the shoulder of my willow blade.
Clack.
The ball took a thick top edge, looping lazily over my head straight into the hands of the crouching short-leg fielder.
"Catch!" the keeper screamed.
The fielder caught it cleanly against his chest, jumping into the air.
I stood there for two seconds, looking down at the split clay where the ball had jumped, before turning around to begin the long walk back to the pavilion stairs. My score was fixed at 53 Runs off 114 balls.
The rest of the Shardashram batting lineup didn’t last another twenty minutes against Kulkarni’s pace. Terrified of the uneven bounce off the cracks, numbers seven to eleven simply stood deep in their crease, poking blindly at everything. Kulkarni clean-bowled two of them with fast yorkers, and Manish wrapped up the final wicket with a simple bat-pad catch to second slip.
Right at 3:55 PM on Day Three, the main umpire pulled the bails off the stumps.
"All out!"
Shardashram Vidyamandir was completely bundled out for 140 Runs in 48 Overs in their second innings.
Because our total of 140 was short of the 247-run first-innings trail, we had failed to make them bat again. IES New English School, Bandra won the Giles Shield Grand Final by an innings and 107 runs.
The presentation ceremony was set up near the main pavilion stairs at 4:15 PM.
The Shardashram boys stood near the rusted iron fence, their faces downcast and covered in red dust. Kamlesh was crying silently behind his kit bag, while Nitin stared at his shoes, his hands trembling. We had spent months training at 5:00 AM, and it had ended in a complete annihilation on a stadium pitch.
The tournament referee stood behind a white plastic table lined with silver trophies.
"We move to the individual awards for the Giles Shield tournament," the referee’s voice boomed through the loudspeakers. "The prize for the Highest Run Scorer and Best Batsman of the Tournament goes to the Shardashram opening batsman, who scored 412 runs across four rounds, including two centuries. Kabir Singh, please come forward."
Nitin gave me a gentle push from behind. "Go, Kabir. You earned it."
I walked up the concrete stairs alone, my small spikes clicking against the stone floor. The local Mumbai selectors and Milind Rege were standing behind the table, watching my small eight-year-old frame approach.
The referee handed me a heavy, polished silver trophy with a wooden base. "A magnificent performance from a young man of just eight years. The city will watch your journey closely, Kabir."
I took the trophy in my hands, its metal feeling cold against my raw, calloused palms. I turned around, looking down at the field. The IES New English boys were cheering, lifting their captain onto their shoulders as they paraded the golden Giles Shield trophy across the grass.
My teammates were still standing by the fence, their heads down, their shoulders slumped in defeat.
I walked back down the stairs, tucking the heavy silver prize into my canvas bag next to my dirty pads. I had the system template, and I had won the individual run prize, but the match was lost. There were no smiles, and there was no celebration. I lifted the heavy kit bag onto my shoulder, looking back at the empty grandstands one last time. The final was over, and the taste of my first defeat in this new life was bitter.
