Free Web NovelChapter 32: Chapter 32: Sweet spot!
The morning sun over the Wankhede practice enclosures didn’t have the dusty haze of the outer maidans. The air smelled of freshly mown grass, leather grease, and the sea breeze coming off the Marine Drive wall. Behind the green iron mesh of the nets, the concrete tiers of the stadium rose high into the sky, completely empty and silent.
Exactly thirty-six boys from the North and Central Mumbai school divisions were spread across the wooden benches under the shadow of the main scoreboard wall. We weren’t here to play a match; we were fighting for fifteen shirts in the final North Zone squad.
I sat on my heavy canvas kit bag, my fingers tracing the new, square-toed handle of my bat. Nitin sat right next to me, slowly shaking a plastic bottle of glucose water to dissolve the white powder. Devendra, Kamlesh, and Vinay completed our small Shardashram cluster on the far bench.
"Look at the Sule Gurukul pack," Nitin whispered, nodding his chin toward the water cooler ten yards away.
Kedar, Sunil, and Chavan—the same boys we had knocked out of the Semifinals last week—were sitting together on a green tarp. They still wore their blue-trimmed school jerseys, their faces serious as they checked their boot spikes. Sunil looked over at our corner, his eyes dropping straight to my small frame, then to the massive, flat-faced willow blade sticking out of my zipper pocket. He didn’t say anything, but he nudged Kedar with his elbow, pointing at the wood.
"They’re still sour about the first-innings lead," Kamlesh muttered, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Sunil hasn’t stopped staring since we entered the gate."
"Let him stare," Nitin said, taking a sip from his bottle. "He’s competing with you for the opening slot in the zonal eleven, Kamlesh. If you poke at the wide ones today, Vasu sir will cross your name off before lunch."
I looked toward the center of the enclosure where the selection panel sat.
Chief Selector Vasu Paranjape was sitting on a white plastic chair right between Net 1 and Net 2. He had a wooden pencil tucked behind his ear, his old linen hat pulled low to block the glare. He didn’t have a giant laptop or a radar gun; he just had a single sheet of rough paper and a pair of thick spectacles. Next to him stood Coach Kadam, a sun-baked veteran with a heavy brass whistle hanging from a black cord around his neck.
Four nets running parallel against the concrete wall. Net One and Two are hard, white clay for the fast bowlers. Net Three and Four are dry, dusting red soil for spin. Five overs total for each batsman. Three overs of raw pace, two overs of turn. No second chances.
"First group! Net Number One!" Coach Kadam’s voice boomed across the grass, followed by a sharp blast of his whistle. Prrt! "Sunil from Sule Gurukul, get your pads on. Kulkarni, Devendra—you two open the bowling from the far markers."
Sunil stood up quickly, his fingers twitching as he snapped his leg guards into place. He grabbed his traditional, curved-face SG bat and walked into the enclosed net space.
Devendra didn’t look at him like a teammate. Even though they were both trying to make the same North Zone side, Devendra wanted to protect his own bowling rank. He took the brand-new red leather ball, walked back to his full eight-step mark near the sightscreen fence, and turned around.
The selectors didn’t waste any time between players. Inside the net, the noise was amplified by the concrete wall behind the bails—the sharp, echoing thwack of the leather meeting the wood, the heavy thud of the ball hitting the protective canvas matting, and the scuff of boots sliding in the dirt.
Devendra ran in hard, his arm coming over in a high, quick arc. He fired a fast, short delivery that zipped off the hard white clay, rising straight toward Sunil’s throat. Sunil was caught off guard by the extra stadium bounce. He flinched, his head dropping over his right shoulder as he awkwardly fished at the ball with a defensive bat.
Clack.
The ball took a thick top edge and flew straight into the side netting at chest height. In a real match, that was a simple catch to gully.
Vasu Paranjape didn’t look up from his ledger, but his wooden pencil moved instantly, making a sharp, dark stroke next to Sunil’s name. "Your weight is remaining on the heels, Sunil!" Vasu sir shouted, his gravelly voice flat. "If you don’t commit the front shoe, the bouncer will take your fingers off! Next ball!"
Sunil’s face went completely red under his helmet visor. He tapped his bat three times against the clay, his breathing heavy as Kulkarni started his run-up from the opposite end.
Nitin shifted his weight on his canvas bag, leaning closer to me. "The pitch is very fast today, Kabir. The ball isn’t stopping at all. If you try to push the hands out early, it’s going to fly."
"The bowlers are rushing because of the selectors," I said, watching Kulkarni deliver a fast yorker that dug into Sunil’s toes. "They are trying to bowl at maximum speed. By eleven o’clock, their shoulders will tire, and the seam will start to wobble. That’s when the loose balls will come."
For the next hour, the boys were just trying to blunt the ball into the grass to avoid looking foolish in front of the committee. Two batsmen from the Balmohan school got completely exposed by the short ball in Net Two, one of them getting hit flush on the inner forearm guard and dropping his bat out of pure pain.
The heat began to rise by 11:00 AM, the morning shadow of the grandstand shrinking until the white clay of Net One looked bright and blinding. Kulkarni was sweating heavily, his pace dropping down by a fraction as his boots kicked up fine white dust from the crease line.
Coach Kadam checked his clipboard, took the whistle out of his mouth, and looked down the line of benches.
"Net Number One!" Kadam shouted, his finger pointing straight at our corner. "Kabir Singh, pad up! You’re facing Kulkarni and Devendra. Nitin, go to Net Three for the spin rotation."
Nitin stood up, grabbing his gloves, and gave my shoulder guard a heavy, solid slap. "Keep the ball on the dirt, Kabir. Show these guys Shivaji Park style."
I didn’t answer. I stood up, unzipped my canvas pocket, and pulled out the square-toed, flat-faced willow bat my dad had shaped in the workshop last night.
As I walked toward the net entry line, the senior boys from the other schools stopped talking. Sunil, who had just finished his session with a bruised thigh pad, stood near the water cooler, his eyes locked onto my blade.
"Look at his bat, re," Kedar whispered from the side, his voice carrying clearly across the grass. "The face is completely flat. No curve at all. Is he going to play cricket or flatten a chapati?"
A few of the suburban bowlers laughed softly, watching my eight-year-old frame step inside the white crease lines.
I ignored the noise. I took my position over the stumps, looked across at Vasu Paranjape sitting just five yards away on his plastic chair, and dropped my weight into the stance.
[Tendulkar Sync: 18.0%]
[Akram Sync: 18.0%]
The blue notification bar updated quickly in the corner of my vision before dissolving into the white glare of the clay. The familiar blueprint of Sachin’s balance settled straight into my knees, keeping my feet steady on the white clay.
Let them talk about the shape. This flat face concentrates every bit of the wood density right behind the ball. Kulkarni is angry. He’s going to feed me a full one right away to prove a point.
Kulkarni stood at the top of his mark, turning the scuffed red ball in his hand. He looked down the pitch at my small chest, a hard, serious expression hitting his face. He didn’t see an eight-year-old; he saw the Shardashram opener who had scored a hundred against him last week. He wanted to blow my stumps out of the dirt on the very first ball.
He sprinted in, his boots tearing up the turf as he loaded up side-on. Out of pure aggression, he pitched it full, a searching, 115 km/h inswinger right at the base of my middle stump.
I didn’t panic or push my hands out away from my body. I trusted the 18% Tendulkar grid, leaned my left shoulder directly down the line of the flight, and brought the vertical face of the flat bat straight down right under my eyes.
CRACK.
The sound was entirely different from the traditional 90s bowed bats. It wasn’t a dull thud—it was a sharp, explosive metallic ring as the ball hit the thick, flat sweet spot. The sheer density of the wood absorbed the full pace of the delivery, punching the red leather straight back down the track.
The ball rocketed along the clay, racing past Kulkarni’s right ankle before he could even complete his follow-through. It tore through the back net alignment, bouncing hard against the concrete stadium wall behind him.
The entire enclosure went completely dead silent. Vasu Paranjape stopped his pencil mid-stroke, slowly lifting his linen hat to look at the spot where the ball had hit.
