My father came home at 7:15 PM, same as always.
Route 48 ended at seven. Depot was twelve minutes on foot. He walked in, hung his bag on the hook next to the cracked bat, and looked at me first. Always me first.
I hadn't understood that as a kid. Now I did. It was a father checking the most important thing in his world was still where he left it.
"How was school?"
"I made the cricket team."
He went still.
Not dramatically — just that small pause between movements. Like a clock between ticks.
"Which team?"
"Class 5. Mr. Deshmukh selected me."
He put his bag down. Sat across from me. And looked at me with something I had not properly read until now.
Hope. The careful kind. The low-volume kind that men like him carried — because they had hoped before and learned to keep it quiet just in case.
"Last year you weren't selected," he said.
"I've been practising."
"With the bat by the door."
"Yeah."
He nodded.
"I'll come to the match."
'He said it like it was nothing. Like it cost nothing.'
"It's on a Wednesday," I said.
"I'll ask Suresh to cover the afternoon run."
'He never asks Suresh for anything. He thinks asking people for favours is an imposition. In my first life, the first match of mine he attended was a Saturday game when I was thirteen — specifically arranged so he didn't have to ask anyone.'
'He's offering to ask Suresh for a Wednesday school match.'
I looked at him. Dusty uniform. Hands on the table — the same hands I'd held in a hospital fifteen years from now.
"Okay," I said. Because there was nothing bigger that fit.
◆ ◆ ◆
The match was Wednesday the twenty-eighth against School No. 3.
Nikhil gave me the scouting report the afternoon before.
"Fast bowler. Rajan Pillai. Eleven years old. Almost broke Prakash's hand last term."
"What's his bowling action like?"
Nikhil blinked. "What?"
"Over the wicket or round? What length does he usually bowl?"
"He's just... fast. He's eleven."
"Everyone's eleven."
He looked at me. "You're different-weird now. Not the normal kind."
I didn't argue.
◆ ◆ ◆
Four in the afternoon. The east ground.
Bamboo stumps. Chalk crease. A boundary line that disappeared in the dry patches.
My father was at the far side in his Route 48 uniform, water bottle in hand.
'He asked Suresh. He actually asked.'
School No. 3 won the toss and put us in. I was batting three.
Nikhil opened, got twenty-two, was caught at mid-off going for a shot that was too ambitious too early.
I walked to the crease.
Rajan Pillai stared at me. The hard stare that fast bowlers do — I'd had it from Dale Steyn, from Brett Lee, from a seventeen-year-old Bumrah in a net that genuinely unsettled me. From an eleven-year-old school bowler it was about fifteen percent of all that. But he meant it.
[System: Match: 1 wicket, 4 runs, 14 overs left. Bowler: Rajan Pillai, right-arm fast. Zero Templates equipped — you are on raw ability only. Note: a Batting Template would improve your read on this delivery significantly. Perform well here and the Wheel may give you one. Play straight. Build.]
'Zero Templates. Fine. Then I bat on what I actually know.'
He ran in.
Full delivery, swinging in late. I moved across, got the full face on it, drove it down the ground. Fielder at long-on cut it off. Not a four but clean. And it told Rajan something.
He paused at his mark.
Second ball — short. He went for me.
I went back, watched it come off the pitch, and pulled it wide of mid-wicket. It bounced twice and crossed the rope.
The watching kids made noise.
I did not look at my father. Not yet.
'Stay in. Stay present. Build first.'
I batted eleven more overs. Thirty-seven not out when the innings closed at seventy-nine for four.
We won by fourteen runs.
Off the ground, my father was waiting at the edge. No shouting. No big celebrations. He handed me the water bottle, one hand briefly on my shoulder, and we walked home.
"That pull shot," he said.
"What about it?"
"Where did you learn it?"
'From watching Gilchrist against Shoaib in 2002 and then two years of getting hit on the arm trying to do the same thing. But no Template. That pull shot tonight was mine. Pure. Nothing borrowed.'
"I don't know," I said. "It just felt right."
He nodded slowly.
"You need a proper bat."
"The Cosco is fine."
"It has a crack."
"I taped it."
"Electrical tape isn't a bat, Arjun."
'He's going to skip lunch at the depot every day for three months. I know because he did it the first time. Found out at sixteen. Too late to do anything about it.'
'Still too late. Can't stop it. Can only make sure it's worth it.'
We turned into the chawl lane.
"Okay," I said quietly.
[System: Performance logged. ]
[Match 1: 37 not out. ]
[Team win]
[No Templates equipped — all natural. Wheel still locked.]
[Next threshold: 50+ in a competitive match. Keep going.]
To be Continued...