first greets and last meets

match 1, day 2 & 3

(day 2)

Are you okay? 06:32

Shubman startled awake, looking around his surroundings frantically to make sense of who he was and where he was and what he was doing. His head throbbed from a pain he couldn't quite place the origin of, and he had to actually stop for a second to relax a bit, take a few deep breaths before realizing he was Shubman Gill, in his room and had been sleeping before being awoken by his alarm ringing.

He hit snooze after finding his phone buried deep inside the pile of comforter around him. Lying back down for the five minutes before his alarm would ring again, he tried to relieve the tension building in his back muscles by sinking into the comfortable mattress. A semi-content sigh found its way to his mouth as he assessed the darkness of his room despite it being morning already, or so had the alarm graciously let him know. He wanted to thank whoever it was who designed the interior of this hotel for installing the all-black and actually effective light blocking drapes that had been drawn to the hilt by a frantic and depressed Shubman last night, and as a second thought, he was grateful for his last night self as well.

Only for the curtains though. Anything before that he either didn't remember, or didn't want to admit his fault in.

Shubman should probably go for breakfast now, considering he had a match to continue today, or more like an innings to do justice to, an innings to make things right again. The absolutely terrific team bonding he had presented from deep within him last night was enough to make him aware of the fact that damage control was going to be extremely tough today, both on and off the field.

On the field would be slightly more difficult, though how would he do that by sitting in the pavilion after his amazingly spectacular performance in yesterday's innings was something Shubman from two hours later should worry about, he decided. 

A quick shower, some sportswear bordering cozy home clothes, and a hair fixing session filled with cursing his past self because why did he think growing out his hair was a nice decision later, Shubman found himself waiting for the elevator to arrive to his floor. 

Like all other tournaments, most of Shubman's team had been deposited on his floor, though due to limited numbers of rooms per floor, some of the members lived on the floor above them, on Ishan's team's floor too. Shubman had thought in the beginning while looking into the room assignment that maybe he should take one on his friend's floor for... reasons unknown to him but had refrained with the excuse of not wanting Ishan to, very plausibly, think he was too clingy or whatever it was that the other hated as a quality in a friend.

Shubman wanted them to be cordial, not overly affectionate and/or suffocating, whichever case worked. 

The thing about sharing the same floor as his team, though, was that while accessing his players was super easy, they were all one or two or a couple more doors down the corridor from him, meaning he could stay up as late as he wanted with them with no problem of going to his room alone in the dead of the night, there was also this fact that he would always end up meeting them on the way to or back from the elevator.  

Often times than not, they ended up sharing the same lift so the possibility that his team, his currently very mad and very disappointed in him team might also be in the lift lobby along with him, waiting for the same elevator, was something he should have considered and known was bound to happen. 

Shubman had thought he had time. Naïvely so, but he had genuinely thought he had time until after the breakfast to get himself together and think of ways of making it up to his team off the field. It was a crazy thing to achieve, he knew that considering the obvious fact that none of his teammates had stayed behind last night, not even to scold him more, but he also knew that for the better functioning of the team and their performance as a whole in the rest of the tournament, it needed to be done. ASAP.