Truly Madly Deeply (17 page)

He sat down on Sahil's bed, choosing to stay back in the room than descending the stairs again to watch the silly PlayStation being manhandled. He remembered a similar piece, an earlier version
of the one that he saw now, that his father had gifted him a
couple of years back on his birthday, lying in the confines of his room back home.

Out of curiosity, he switched on the small television kept on the table near the bed. He wanted to see what was happening back home. A trace of Indian-ness perhaps could only be brought by watching an Indian channel. He rarely got to see television and depended on the Radio for much of the events around the world. While surfing the channels, his fingers stopped on witnessing a cricket match being played between India and Pakistan. It had been so long since he held a bat and he did not remember the last time he had seen a cricket match on television. He knew the hype this kind of a match would generate back home. From the politicians to the public in both the countries, all would be on their toes, and the outcome of such an encounter could have cyclopean consequences. Cricket was almost a religion back home, here he had never seen anyone discuss, let alone play the game.

He almost smiled, when Sehwag hit a boundary on a rising delivery that would have taken any other batsmen's head off and made his displeasure known to no one in particular when the new opening batsman he did not recognise, played an away going delivery onto the stumps. Suddenly, he found himself enjoying the game he had been so good at. He expressed his disappointment loudly to himself when Sehwag chased a delivery outside the off stump and edged it to the keeper. He clapped for Yuvraj when he hit Afridi out of the park for a mammoth six. He was watching the game intently as the pressure began to set in. He enjoyed the feel of the pressure, the rush of the blood in his veins. He connected well with it and then he saw himself in the game, a familiar feeling, a long gone memory came back to him as he blinked for one last time before disappearing in his own thoughts and on the field.

“Young men's love then lies, Not truly in their hearts,

But in their eyes”

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

The sports day of the school was always a grand affair, as it would provide the maximum output of points for the four houses that competed for the ultimate house-cup. Seema's Green house would have been looking to retain the trophy from last year, but this year Rahul vowed to change the past history. Blue house had lost out to Yellow and Green on the two hundred metre relay race, hundred metre one leg race and the short put event but had managed to win the Cycling and Spoon races.

The deciding factor however, would have been the inter-house cricket tournament which was introduced from that year itself. It was known by all that the Green and Red houses had a
couple of state level players each, whereas the Blue house
had no stand out players and even Rahul never played for the
State or District but he was a persistent and determined all-rounder who played the game from the heart. He used to attend cricket coaching a couple of years back but that was it, he had to quit as he could not adjust to the academy's timings due to his
morning school.

Rahul started shortlisting the candidates from his house by overseeing their practice in a small playground near the school in the evenings. He was particularly pleased with two of the boys from his class; Samiullah and Wahid, the former, a short powerhouse and the latter, a sturdy pinch-hitter, whom he also named as his deputy for the tournament. He submitted the list of fourteen players to Dorothy ma'am, their house mentor.

Rahul meanwhile, practised his batting strokes with Raj on an ugly wicket in their colony's playground. Raj had been coached at Shivaji Park's best academy. He was a sharp bowler, whose balls zipped and zoomed just when they were near the bat. If Rahul could play him well, he was sure he could just about manage any bowler from the opposite teams.

“I wish I could take you to play in my team,” Rahul sighed, a day prior to the match.

“Ah, I would have loved to play and kick some arse but at least you can invite me to watch, right?” Raj questioned.

“Unfortunately, no, there will be school peons manning the ground gates and they're under strict instructions from the Princi to not allow any outsider to enter. I guess the school uniform is the only license. I would have given you a spare one but sadly, it won't fit you, shorty,” Rahul laughed. Raj kicked him playfully.

***

The open stadium housed almost the entire secondary section of the school. Rahul led his team on the field for the second match against the Yellow house, after the Green house had knocked out the Red in the first match of the morning by a mammoth 87 runs.

Surprisingly, the second match proved to be a relatively easier affair than imagined, as the Blue house chased down the assigned 115 runs in 17 overs itself, instead of the allotted twenty. It was largely possible due to an early outburst of aggression by Samiullah, who got the advantage of deliveries that climbed upon him being called as no-balls, and then a decent partnership between Rahul and Wahid, who used a heavy bat with an unusual swing that was pretty useful in scaring the wicketkeeper whenever he came up close to the stumps.

And then the moment came, that Rahul had been waiting for: the clash with the Green house. For Rahul, this was not just a game; this was the matter of his ego and maintaining the word that he had given to his mates, before the start of the competition, near the topmost stands where the green house people were gathered. He had ensured that she would hear each and every word he uttered. This was what he wanted and this was what he had got.

“We will trash the Green folks if they ever manage to reach the finals,” he had loudly proclaimed to his teammates, in a burst of confidence upon seeing her.

Rahul started by inspiring his teammates and invoking them to perform to retain their pride. It seemed that fate was not on their side during the toss and they had to resort to their backup bowling first plan on what looked like a decent batting track.

“Dude, the pitch is as dry as a virgin's pussy,” he heard Khalid, a thin, wired looking guy from his team, comment.

The game started and Rahul took the new ball in his hands. He steamed in, concentrating on pace and in the process ended up conceding more extras than he would have thought. He kept varying the angles at which he ran in to control the wayward swing and it seemed to help. In the last delivery, he released the ball through the back of his hand and watched it swing midway to sneak in through the batsman's defence and knock him over. There was huge roar of applause and Rahul jumped high in the air, pointing a mocking finger towards the green house stand.

The green house trudged on at a decent run rate, hammering a boundary or two every over. Rahul took the bowl again after Mushtaq, a left-arm fast bowler wrapped the batsman in front of the wicket and Godfrey sir, their physical training instructor in school and umpire for this game, raised his index finger. Asif walked in to bat for his house and the entire stand of his house cheered, especially Seema. This infuriated Rahul but he calmed himself down.

Asif, he knew, was a friend but competing against friends was never a criterion for performance in any competition, Rahul told himself. Apart from being their key player, Asif was also the captain of the Green house team.

Rahul steamed in again to start a new spell and the very first ball of his second over vanished out of the ground. If Rahul was amazed, he did a very bad job of hiding it because pride or no pride, he knew it was not easy for a bowler of his pace and quality to get treated in that manner. Considering that as a chance shot, he concentrated on a tight length for the next bowl but Asif made room and slashed the good length ball over long off for another six. By this time, Rahul's pride and overconfidence, had both been dashed against the stands. He did not want to, but yet he did eye the Green house stand and was confronted with what he was dreading – a smirk on Seema's face. He just lost it after that, two no-balls and a couple of wides later, another six and a four followed and somehow Rahul wound up a disastrous over.

Other bowlers were also not spared as they bowled with their battered confidences seeing their captain being treated in that manner, though they were treated with a little more respect by the Green house batsmen who seemed to be on a rampage. Asif played with a lot of gusto and lofted almost every second ball with perfect timing.

Rahul did not bring himself on, even after Asif was dismissed for a respectable fifty seven. Evidently, Asif's presence on the field had irked him and made him misfield and even drop a couple of simple catches, or was it the scene etched in his memory of the smirk on Seema's face? The Blue house team soon lost whatever remaining confidence they possessed and finally, perhaps half the suffering came to end as the Green house team piled on a mammoth score of 194 and in the process lost just five wickets.

Rahul tried to motivate the team in the set-up tent which was to act as their make-shift pavilion.

“Ok guys, heads up, mind alert. We've not lost it yet,” he said, seeing their gloomy faces but being dejected himself, he did not do a very good job of what he had intended to.

The Blue house team soon came out to bat but started weakly, as their already battered confidences shook with the rattling of the wickets. Three wickets fell until the fourth over itself, and Rahul, who had already lowered himself down the order and in his own eyes, cancelled his strategy speech to a silent word of his demotion. When another wicket fell, he went inside the tent to place the guard on his groin and finally took the willow in his hand. There was wide scale booing as he walked out, from which stand he could not make out but could reasonably guess.

Rahul faced Ramadan, a tall, lanky figure, who steamed in with a bouncer that nearly cut off his head as the bat in his hand refused to budge and the next bowl just missed his helmet by a whisker. Finally, the bowler found his target on the fourth ball of the over, as the red ball hit Rahul on the jaw and another red hit the ground. There was silence all around and then shouts erupted. Some students from the stands, walked on the ground to check on him. His teammates were there along with many he did not know by name and amongst those lost faces; he saw a known face standing behind in the rush, trying to jump up, her mediocre height an obvious shortcoming in the circumstances. Lying with his back to the ground, Rahul did not see the medics come in and did not sense that the game had stopped for a good ten minutes. Everything had stopped in his mind too, when he saw the look of concern on her face.

Rahul knew then, he could not go back, he had to fight, to prove his mettle, to prove himself. He stood up, a bit shaken but more determined with a bandage on his forehead. There was a deafening roar from the crowd as claps echoed to cheer him. Godfrey Sir, the umpire, requested him to leave the field and retire but he chose to stay, he chose to fight. All he saw was Seema rushing back to the stands with a friend, turning back to see him. He held the picture in his mind's eye.

Rahul's refusal of any further medical aid made the Green house players smirk. The bowler whispered to him, “Your helmet won't protect you. Kyun jaan ki baazi laga raha hai… the next one will probably get you in your head.”

Rahul sensed the same anger but this time he decided to use the anger for his own benefit and not let unrequired emotions undermine his performance and mentality. Rahul then turned to look at the scoreboard; they still required 136 runs from 14.1 overs with seven wickets in hand at an astounding 9.71 runs per over. He knew the odds were not in their favour but at the same time, he knew a composed and determined will would not stop them from achieving their aim.

Ramadan winked at him, as he steamed in for the next delivery, it was another short pitched one, well directed and if Rahul had not moved fast and guided his bat to fine leg, where the fielder was a lot squarer, he probably would have been lying down again and not have found the welcome boundary.

“Try taking the singles and rotate the strike. You won't feel much pressurised that way and it will break the bowler's rhythm,” Rahul advised Amit, his current batting partner.

“The ball's not coming onto the bat,” Amit complained.

“See the brighter side of it, there is no seam movement. We utilised the morning wind to our advantage and now they have none. Just ensure your bat stays in the line of the ball and play your shots,” Rahul patted his back.

Amit nudged the bowl in the gaps and ran hard whenever needed, converting the singles into doubles and the doubles into triples. Rahul noticed he used his wrists to good effect.

He, on the other hand took the attack to the bowling team, being careful not to take the aerial risks, he catapulted his shots into gaps with a skill he never knew he possessed. He cut and drove with renewed ferocity and with exceptional timing. Rahul kept on finding the boundary at least once every over. He tried to target the spinners, as the wicket did not offer much turn and played a couple of lofted shots that just about reached the rope. Rahul lost Amit when he tried to negotiate a rising delivery that kissed his gloves and rose high in the air, back to the bowler. Similarly, Samiullah, who had been lowered down the order to handle the innings,
was dismissed trying for a quick single, eager to give the strike to this captain.

In the following two overs, they lost two more wickets, courtesy some poor running and some good fielding by their opponents. Ismail and Moiz both fell down cheaply, one refusing a run that was on and the other, running with all his might when Rahul kept on refusing the single which they never could have completed.