Chapter 26: Trainer! Schoolar!
The world, for Raghav, had shrunk. It was now a 22-yard pitch he couldn't walk on, and the four walls of his room.
The day after his "promotion," he stood at the edge of the school ground, his heavy plaster cast an anchor.
He held the team clipboard in his left hand, a cheap pen wedged awkwardly between his fingers.
He watched Vikram and Gourav practicing in the nets.
Gourav, his confidence high after the last match, was playing with a new, wild aggression.
He swung hard at one of Prakash's off-spinners, intending to send it over Long-On, but his front foot was all wrong.
He'd planted it too far across, closing his body. The ball took the inside edge and rattled his stumps.
Clack.
"Ah, bad luck!" Vikram called out.
"It's not bad luck," Raghav muttered, his voice too low for them to hear.
He felt a familiar, burning itch in his muscles. The 42-year-old in him knew exactly what was wrong.
'His front foot,' he thought, 'he's 'planting.' He's not driving through the ball; he's just swinging at it.'
His right hand twitched inside the cast, a ghost limb desperate to grip a bat and show him.
He couldn't.
He uncurled his left hand, frustrated, and made a clumsy, mirror-image note on the clipboard: Gourav - front foot planting.
He was a general who could see the entire battlefield but couldn't fire a gun.
"It's hard, isn't it?"
Raghav startled. Coach Sarma was standing beside him, his arms crossed, his eyes on the net. He hadn't heard him approach.
"Just watching," Sarma clarified. "Knowing you can't go out there."
Raghav just nodded, his throat tight.
"It's a different kind of strength, Roi," Sarma said.
"Playing is easy. It's all instinct. Watching... that takes patience. It takes a different kind of mind."
Sarma turned his gaze to Raghav, his expression unreadable.
"Spring Dale. They practice at the ACA Stadium in Barsapara. The ground is private. Top-class facilities. We practice on packed dirt. They practice on imported grass."
He didn't need to say anything else. The implication was clear.
"They won't let us in to watch, will they?" Raghav asked.
"Not a chance," Sarma said. "Their coach is a professional. He runs that team like a fortress. They're playing a practice match tomorrow against a city XI. Pity we won't get to see it."
Sarma looked at Raghav, a long, meaningful pause. The emotional beat hung in the air. He wasn't ordering Raghav.
He was presenting a fact.
Then, he turned and walked away. "Fix Gourav's foot. Use your words."
Raghav understood. He was an assistant coach. He was also a spy.
The next day, Raghav felt a knot of anxiety in his stomach. He'd lied to his mother, a clumsy,
"Abhinav and I are going to the library to study."
The lie tasted like soap.
He had 225 SP. He spent 10 on another Minor Intelligence Boost, not for academics, but for observation. He needed his 26.1 Cricket IQ to be as sharp as possible.
The ACA Stadium was a different world. It was a concrete bowl, new and imposing, a monument to the real money in cricket.
Raghav, in his dusty school uniform and a sling, felt like a beggar at a king's feast.
He couldn't get in. The gates were guarded.
He walked the perimeter, his good hand rubbing the rough edge of his plaster cast—a new, nervous habit.
He felt stupid. He was a 12-year-old boy with a broken arm, trying to spy on the best team in the state. This was insane.
He was about to give up.
Then he saw it. A gap in the wall on the far side, where a section of the outer stands was still under construction. A few twisted pieces of rebar and a loose sheet of tin. It was just big enough.
He slipped through.
He found himself on the top tier of an empty, sun-baked concrete stand, looking down. The field below was a perfect, almost artificial green.
And on it, Spring Dale International was putting on a clinic.
Sarma was right. They were perfect.
Their openers were like textbook diagrams: high elbows, straight bats, perfect Cover Drives.
Their bowlers ran in with smooth, repeatable actions. Their fielders moved as one, cutting off angles, their throws flat and hard.
Raghav watched for an hour, his heart sinking. There was no weakness.
Thomas, from SLS, had been a monster of pure power. He was a blunt object.
This team was a team of surgeons. They were methodical, precise, and cold. They weren't arrogant. They were just... better.
The city XI team was getting frustrated, trying to hit their way out of the suffocating pressure. A batsman tried to slog a fast bowler over Mid-Wicket.
The Spring Dale captain, a tall, elegant boy named Rohan Sharma, simply signaled to his fielder.
The fielder moved from Mid-Wicket to Deep Mid-Wicket.
The batsman tried the same shot again.
He was caught.
Raghav felt a chill. The captain hadn't just reacted. He had anticipated. He had seen the batsman's frustration, set a trap, and the batsman had walked right into it.
This captain... his Cricket IQ had to be 25, at least. He was Raghav's equal, but with a fully functional team.
Raghav felt hopeless. His team of gully cricketers, with their sloppy footwork and wild swings, would be dismantled.
He was about to leave. His quest was a failure.
Then, he focused on the captain, Rohan. He watched him for ten straight minutes. The captain was also the team's wicketkeeper.
Rohan was, like the rest of his team, flawless. He collected the ball cleanly. His movements were economical. He was a wall behind the stumps.
Raghav narrowed his eyes. The Intelligence Boost was making his mind race, connecting patterns.
He watched the fast bowler come in. The ball was pitched just outside Off-Stump, a Good Length delivery. The batsman left it.
Swish. Thud. The ball hit Rohan's gloves. Perfect.
Another ball. This one was wide. A Short Length ball. Rohan moved to his right, a fluid, easy side-step, and collected it.
Another ball. This one was on the Leg Side.
Rohan moved to his left.
And Raghav saw it.
He paused. His heart skipped a beat.
It was tiny. A normal person would never see it.
But to Raghav, with his cricketer IQ, it was a glaring, flashing red light.
When moving to his right, Rohan's movement was a single, fluid motion.
When moving to his left... it was a two-step movement. A small, initial "trigger" step with his right foot, before his left foot moved. It was a fractional, almost imperceptible delay.
A technical "hitch."
He was slow to his left. By maybe half a second.
Raghav held his breath. 'It's a pattern,' his mind whispered. 'He's been trained to move right for Off-Side deliveries so much that his left-side movement is a compensation, not an instinct.'
For a team that played "by the book," this was a fatal flaw. Because a 'by the book' batsman never intentionally hits the ball fine on the leg side.
But a 'gully cricket' team? A team of improvisers?
Raghav's mind began to race, a new, chaotic plan forming. A plan that didn't need power or perfection.
It just needed to be very, very annoying.
That evening, Raghav found Coach Sarma in the empty sports room, inventorying old bats.
The room smelled of linseed oil and old leather.
Raghav, breathing a little hard from running back, stood in the doorway.
Sarma didn't look up. He just continued making notes in a ledger. The silence was the question.
"You were right, Coach," Raghav said. "They're perfect."
Sarma's pen stopped moving. He slowly closed the ledger.
"And?" he asked.
Raghav stepped into the room. He held up his clipboard with his left hand, his eyes burning with a new, fierce light.
"Their captain is a genius. He anticipates everything. He's also their wicketkeeper."
Raghav took a breath, letting the emotional beat land.
"And he's slow to his left."
Coach Sarma's head snapped up. For the first time, Raghav saw a genuine, predatory smile spread across his coach's face.
"Slow," Sarma repeated, the word tasting sweet.
"He has a hitch in his footwork," Raghav said, "But it's only exploitable if you're not playing proper cricket. You have to play ugly. You have to play on the Leg Side. You have to... flick. A lot.".
Sarma was quiet for a long time. He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at their own empty, dusty field.
"Play ugly," he mused. He turned back to Raghav, his smile gone, replaced by that familiar, intense focus.
"Good work, Assistant Coach," he said. "Now... how do we teach this team of brawlers to flick a ball... in three days?"
(To be Continued)