Can't promise you the world, but... (A Rohit-Shreyas Fanfiction)

Chapter 12

2022

In the ODI series vs South Africa, India played a team that consisted of rejects, and Shreyas played really, really well, as good he had believed he would.

Rage, it appeared, was a good partner for his ventures.

Just like it was with Virat bhaiya, or you never knew--just humans in general.

Soon after, the T20 World Cup started, where India went more or less comfortably up to the semi finals and lost to a one-sided Buttler show.

Though Shreyas regretted missing Virat bhaiya's legendary knock against Pakistan, he was not sorry to have missed the tournament overall, with the way it ended. He had religiously tried to avoid going out of his room at all during the matches, because his father and Shresta would have the TV on--Shresta's indignation clearly did not extend to not watching the country playing a World Cup, but Shreyas' did. It was not just indignation, it was fear, too. If he watched, he'd feel like a failure.

'You know what the worst part is?' Rohit bhaiya had been saying once long back to someone, maybe Ajju bhai, that Shreyas had overhead. 'I did not even watch half the matches. I was shut up in my room and didn't even WATCH India winning the only World Cup India will win in my lifetime, probably--forget winning one myself.'

Shreyas wished he could strangle the part of his memory that offered him up such dialogues.

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And he continued doing the one thing he could: try to grab every opportunity that came his way. It was twisted and it was ironic that he was a part of the next set of series India played continuously...T20s vs New Zealand, ODIs vs New Zealand (still partly a team of rejects)...and then the ODIs vs Bangladesh, where the ones who'd played the World Cup returned.

In the second ODI, when India was fielding in the first innings, Rohit caught a blow to his thumb that started swelling so fast, he had to be rushed off for scans instantly. When the team was in the dugout for the innings break, he returned. It was a dislocation and he'd needed stitches, and he displayed the thumb for them, which had swollen so much no glove would fit.

"Hello, opener," Shikhar told Virat brightly. "Looks like we're playing with ten people today."

"Well, get it done within the ten," Rohit told them. "Better still, between you two. Or I'll have to go at nine-down."

Virat and Shikhar gave loud fake-laughs before they went down to bat.

India did not go off to a good start, and when Shreyas went to bat, they were four down at a little over fifty. They had over a two hundred yet to chase.

That day, Shreyas felt a different kind of responsibility in batting.

It wasn't just about making the team win--it was just a bilateral match against Bangladesh, after all--nor was it just about grabbing every opportunity he got and venting his feeling of constantly being wronged. He didn't realize what it was about till he entered the 70s and it occurred to him that he wanted to see India through to the end this much mostly so that another person definitely didn't have to bat that day.

Though it was ludicrous, the idea of someone batting with a dislocated thumb...and even more ludicrous why the situation should make him feel this desperate to be there till the end.

It was frustrating, the way his brain worked sometimes.

Unfortunately, the frustration caught hold off him and pissed him off so much--simply that he was desperate--that he didn't manage to see India to the end, and got out in the eighties.