when 77 met 32 [ishman ff] [shubish]

2025

After that sudden revelation of weird facts, me and abhishek, we both started a quest of searching for more clues. We decided amongst ourselves that we would not reveal this to anybody just yet. We were going to keep this between ourselves.

The main reason behind this was, we did not know whom to trust anymore. I mean members were all amazing and we knew it but what if there was someone who wasn't really from our side. What if there was someone who couldn't be trusted?

That 'what if' scared us enough to decide to take no risks at all. But now with the searching for clues we also needed to understand if anyone of them could be a mole. This part actually sounded harder than anything else. We needed to get our doubts cleared.

I for one couldn't concentrate on anything at all. I mean I have never really trusted anybody that much also I was very new with all of them but I was still finding it hard to actually doubt these people. Weird.

I can only imagine the state of abhishek. That guy was fighting his demons. Literally. He can't doubt people for the life of him. Sometimes I feel like he is too good to be a human and these people were his playmates. It has been hard on him.

We both had this certain understanding of excluding shubman from out doubt list because of obvious reasons. The said shubman these days looked like even a fly could hurt him forget about him hurting people. Especially Ishan. There is no way shubman was going to hurt him.

That left us with the rest of the team. These people were with us 24/7. So, there was no way we could search for anything without alerting any of them, we definitely needed to know who was on our side before we proceeded.

Even if shubman was on our clear list we were still not telling him anything. That guy would behave like a ticking bomb if told about our speculations. We couldn't risk it at all. And also, he was already behaving so hostile towards the management that he didn't need any more reason to just blow up.

We wanted to start with rohit and then virat and hardik. Because these were the main people on the face of the team. They know almost everything that happens here and with them on our side we could get to our goal a little earlier and a little smoother.

"how do you plan on doing this?" abhishek questioned me one evening. "I have no idea. But we need to think of something sooner." "I think they can be trusted. Really, there is no way any one of them could be a mole. They are all too nice for that."

I mean that is abhishek for you, guys. He would trust strangers, these were still his seniors. But the mole when we talk about one, comes out of most unexpected people and the most trusted ones also.

"we still need to be sure abhi." "how?" well that was a nice question but the only not so nice part about it was, I really didn't know the answer to it. But with the thinking part we were actually wasting our time. And time was one thing that was extremely precious right now.

"if any one of them is in on that, they would definitely know about the people who left, right. So, we could maybe change the document a bit and ask them about it." "are you okay?" "what?" because why was he asking me that, of course I was okay.

"because Suhani, they are cricketers they know who left and who didn't. That list was not confidential at all, any one could have an access to it. So, this would be completely meaning less." Okay he wasn't really wrong about that. But was there any better option?

I really needed to work on my acting skills also, because a few days after that conversation, virat said to me if I was trying to shoot him dead with my eyes. I think I really was staring too much. But then I was thinking.

Maybe other members couldn't be trusted but virat, rohit and hardik have to be trustworthy right? I mean Ishan is really important to all of them. Maybe that is why I wanted these people in the clear before anyone else.

Orrr wait. We can ask them about these three people in particular. I mean there is no way players that big knows about these small fishes, right? Maybe they would know about them playing in the under nighteens or maybe they would know about their domestic franchise.

But the deep knowledge would be with the person who was actually trying to get them off the cricket. He would definitely know about them. The question is how could I ask them about these people without alerting the mole or sounding completely stupid and out of place.

This concern of mine was taken care of in the next few days, when I was sitting with virat and rohit, discussing about the new fielding strategy and a list of players came out that were to be playing the next tournament. This was the complete list of playing 9, 11 and all the extras.

We had had this player who played in the extra squad with us until last tournament and he was quite amazing actually, in the last tournament we were talking about maybe letting him play one or two main matches.

But the concern was that this person suddenly decided to quit the upcoming tournament. He did not want to play the next matches at all. When asked for a reason he submitted a 'reason is not about the professional field at all. I like cricket and I am quite happy with it. The reason is actually personal.' Letter.

This letter and the list made me spark a conversation about the increasing amounts of players quitting these days. Virat and I along with rohit talked for hours on this topic but I did not feel like they were sticking one any one player too much and neither did I feel like they were avoiding a player at all.

And when the topic came around Ishan, they got quite emotional. they tried their best not to show it at all but it still made its presence felt. I can get their name off the suspect list, I think. I mean for as long as they were not astounding actors, they were definitely clear.

I in the middle of the conversation tried to get the topic towards these three players in particular also but there was not any significant reaction from them at all. Also, for the next few days I observed them both to see if they were behaving weird at all. But nope they weren't.

"I think virat and rohit are in clear." I told abhishek "why, what happened?" he was quite happy hearing that but was also curious. So, I narrated about the story of that quitting player to him and also repeated my conversation with virat and rohit. I think he got an idea about what I was trying to do. And how I got to the conclusion that they can be in clear.

"see I told you didn't i? they are definitely not in on this." Well yeah, he also thinks that everybody is honest and innocent but then we can't really take a person like that seriously, right?

"but wait? Did you notice something?" "what?" oh god did I miss something again? "the player you said quitted? He was also from Ishan's U-19 world cup team, wasn't he?"

"wait? Really?" no that cant be. This is getting more fucked up as the time passes. "yes. I definitely remember because he used to talk about it a lot. What was the reason he gave?" "the usual abhishek. There is no particular reason."

Oh god he was a victim also, wasn't he? But we can't be going and talking to him right now. we need to wait. He won't speak right now and there might also be people watching him. But wanting to get Ishan off cricket is one thing and wanting to harm people with no shine in the cricket is another. I mean who would even want these people off cricket.

Right now, all I could think off was how to get hardik off the suspect list as fast as we could, so that we could proceed with the matter at hand.