The door knocking

Chapter 2

The practice sessions drove Shreyas insane.

Nitish and Rinku argued nonstop every time either of them hit a good aerial shot—"that's a six" "that's out!"

Rinku took it in his stride and laughed it off, but Nitish quickly became fiercely competitive and tended to storm off if others took Rinku's side.

Venky, it seemed, had the designated role of going after him, placating him and bringing him back. Shreyas thought he might have been grateful to him, but one day he was batting adjacent to Venky's nets as VC bowled to Shreyas, and they continuously jabbered in Tamil.

Shreyas swung and missed—Venky shrieked in Tamil. VC laughed and said something back in Tamil. Shreyas narrowed his eyes at both of them, which Venky must have noticed, because he said apologetically, "Sorry, skipper, I just said your shot reminded me a bit of Mahi bhai's last season."

"Oh," Shreyas sniffed.

Next ball, Shreyas played a nice shot. Venky chided VC in Tamil. VC went into a long explanation—also in Tamil.

Shreyas took a bunch of deep breaths to stop himself from getting so vexed.

"Sorry again, skipper, can't help it sometimes," said Venky.

Go find some other bloody nets, why don't you?

"It's all right," said Shreyas through gritted teeth that made him sound polite.

"You don't say all right, you tell 'em off," urged Nitish from the side.

"Maybe now you blokes realize how we feel when you go 'bout in Hindi," said Pat with an easygoing smile.

Nitish raised his hands in surrender, but Shreyas' hackles rose.

"We never spoke in Hindi when foreigners were around in DC," he flared.

In the momentary hush, it seemed to have dawned on Pat that his joke had been mistimed.

"That's, um, great," he said feebly. "Hope you reinforce that rule in this camp as well, skip."

Will you all stop calling me skip? I have a name, you know!

"I'm not here to change anything," said Shreyas. "It's your team."

Which might have sounded a sweet thing to say if the 'not mine' had not been hanging out so blatantly in the end.

________________

Another thing that drove Shreyas mad were the team meetings, where right in the middle of a speech of a coach, there would be outbursts of laughter for no reason at all.

Mavi seemed the most susceptible to being provoked into it, and all other took it upon themselves to make him laugh.

Vaguely, heartbreakingly, Shreyas would be reminded of how he and Rishabh had made it a rule to avoid each other's eyes during team meetings much for the same reason.

He was in such a lousy mood before their match with DC approached, which was only heightened by five laughter stretched in the meeting, that he ended up fighting viciously with Rishabh on call later that day. It wasn't easy to fall out with Rishabh, but with his persistent meanness, Shreyas did accomplish it sometimes. Like that day.

Afterwards, he spent the entire evening locked in his team, crying tears of rage and helplessness.

He hated this team, this camp and everyone inside it—he hated how despite being polite and respectful to him, the old KKR bunch always made him feel like and outsider, and he couldn't forget his navy blue camp where he was the foremost of all insiders—and how was he supposed to face DC as opposition captain less than a week away, he didn't know.

He was roused by a tap on the door.

Furiously, Shreyas wiped his eyes dry and opened.

It was Rinku, who said hesitantly, "They're calling you for the press conference."

"Can you just—send someone else?" Shreyas said without thinking. "No," he amended quickly, "I'm coming."

Rinku took a timid step backwards, but said, "Are you all right, Shreyas bhaiya?"

Shreyas was too thrown-off to speak.

Rinku had never seemed a particularly expressive sort of person except while goofing on the field. How obvious was Shreyas being?

He couldn't bring himself to snub Rinku directly.

"I'm not in a mood to attend this conference, much," he admitted.

"Should I tell someone to cover for you?"

"You go cover for me," said Shreyas, unable to help a grin.

"I can't," said Rinku, flashing back an embarrassed grin. "I can't speak two words of English in front of a camera."

"Can't you?" Shreyas asked, astonished because he'd always got the impression Rinku was particularly close to Russell, and close enough with Pat and Narine.

"No, I'll just freeze. I can ask Nitish bhaiya to—"

"No, no, it's ok, I've got it."

When Rinku turned to go, Shreyas called after him, impulsively, "I'm decent at English public speaking, maybe I can teach you someday."

Rinku turned back, bemused.

"Thanks, bhaiya, but batting's pretty much the only thing I can do on cameras," he said bashfully.

"That's why you've got to learn," said Shreyas, half-earnest, half-commanding. "When you're a big star for KKR, you'll have to go and give your interviews, won't you?"

At that point, Nitish turned up to tell Shreyas to hurry up and ask Rinku if he couldn't even do such a simple thing as telling someone to hurry up.

At the same time, he had his arm slung around Rinku's shoulders.

In spite of his resentment, Shreyas was learning more and more about his teammates every day. For example, constant needling seemed to be Nitish Rana's love language when it came to his best friend.

And out of nowhere, Shreyas missed Rishabh so hard, his chest hurt.