Memories in gold against a purple sky

The fast bowler attitude (Harshit-Vaibhav-Starcy)

March 2023

Harshit Rana was only 21 when Vaibhav Arora first met him.

Almost exactly four years younger to Vaibhav (their birthdays were in the same month too, as they later found out), but he couldn't have guessed from the first glimpse on the training grounds.

The boy exuded confidence in his gait, his run up and his bowling, and his talking, too.

 Later, Vaibhav would discover that he was from Delhi, and had grown up idolizing, like several Delhi youngsters, Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli, and that their captain for the season, Nitish Rana (who was also from Delhi and also idolized Gautam Gambhir) especially favoured him and had insisted he be bought by KKR in last year's mega auction.

Perhaps that explained the confidence. Plus the fact that, Vaibhav saw during their first training session together, he had a mean off-cutter and a yorker, and the coaches always had a discreet eye on him when he was bowling, like they expected great things from him someday in the future.

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Vaibhav knew most of the team from before, since he'd played for them in the 2021 season. He didn't know the new buys from 2022, however.

Nitish bhaiya was the one who'd introduced them.

"Hey, Vaibhav, come over here!" he hailed, grabbing Harshit's arm to stop him from fidgeting with the ball as he always seemed to do. "This is Harshit, our youngest pacer."

"Hello," said Harshit.

"Hello," mumbled back Vaibhav, who was on the shyer side with strangers (and mostly anyone).

"Vaibhav is a right arm fast, too," Nitish bhaiya told Harshit.

"Oh!" said Harshit in an uncomplimentary surprised tone.

Vaibhav was used to that. People always tended to assume he was a batsman or a spinner. His mother said it was his attitude that did so. His childhood coach agreed.

"Fast bowlers aren't supposed to take their run up with their eyes on the ground," he said. "It boosts the batsman's confidence. As a pacer, you always have to believe and project that you're better than the batsman."

A very easy thing that was!

Nitish bhaiya left them to practice together, and Vaibhav knew at once that his coach wouldn't have had to drill this into Harshit's ears, if he'd been his mentee.

Harshit Rana had no trouble in believing and projecting that he was better than whichever batsman he was bowling to.

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That season, Harshit and Vaibhav were automatically thrown together a lot. One big reason was they were part of 'the pacers' that were KKR's bane that season.

Harshit seemed to have an unending reserve of energy. He could stay in the gym (and not slacking off) three hours and go to the grounds immediately afterwards, and drag half the team out for tea before they had even cooled down after practice.

The seniors put their foot down sometimes. Some of them never did--like Venky bhaiya, who never refused anything of the juniors. Or the seniors either. Suyash and Rinku, who seemed to share the same energy reserve, were ever-ready anyway.

Vaibhav had to be ever-ready, too, because Harshit never got tired of pestering him non-stop. And he used the sentiment of both of them being right-armed fasts very often, though it made no sense. There were plenty of other pacers in the squad, but they were much older than them, so Vaibhav couldn't counter using them.