Sunrisers Hyderabad had come from Mumbai to Gujarat and played the same way. In Ahmedabad they took the Gujarat Titans top order apart and chased a total that never asked a question. The 2024 start had a shape to it.
Now the side was home.
Nagole, east of Hyderabad. The Nexus Smart Stadium. At dusk the LED boards came on and the district went orange. Glass and steel carried the light past the ground.
Inside, sixty thousand people in orange. The drums came off the concrete. Chennai Super Kings were the visitors. The noise was a full house before the first ball.
---
In the VIP area Kavya Maran, CEO of Sunrisers Hyderabad, had the area for guests, partners, and family. Leather seats. Hyderabadi food. Glass onto the pitch.
Krithika sat in a chair in a pale orange colour T-shirt with a white jacket, the team crest. Beside her, her younger sister, Anjali. Anjali had come to the match. Her mother-in-law had stayed with Harini.
The warm-up was not what the box was watching.
On a corner sofa sat Venkatesh Daggubati. Victory Venkatesh. He came to the SRH games often.
Aadhya, in her DEVA 6 orange jersey, had walked the suite, then gone straight to the man everyone else wanted a word with.
Venkatesh sat her on his knee. Krithika watched, a glass of water in her hand.
"So," Aadhya said, arms crossed. "What do you do? Do you play cricket like my Nana?"
"No, I don't play cricket like your Nana," Venkatesh said. "Your Nana hits the ball much too hard for me. I am an actor."
Aadhya's eyes moved. "An actor? Like in the movies on the television?"
"Exactly like that," Venkatesh said. "I pretend to be different people and tell stories on the big screen."
Aadhya leaned in. This was her ground.
"Were you in Frozen?" Aadhya asked.
Venkatesh blinked. "Ah. No, I was not in Frozen. That is an animated movie, little one."
Aadhya frowned. "Were you in Moana? Did you fight the big lava monster?"
"I haven't fought any lava monsters recently," Venkatesh said, hand on his chin. "I usually do movies where I am a funny husband, or a police officer in the city. Have you seen F2? Or Drushyam?"
Aadhya looked at him. She shook her head. "No. Those sound very boring. If there are no lava monsters and no magic snow, why do people watch you?"
Kavya, plate in hand, laughed out loud. Krithika covered her mouth. Anjali leaned on her sister's chair. Venkatesh was being told off by a kindergartener.
He laughed. "You make a very good point, Aadhya. I will have to talk to my directors about more magic snow."
He tapped her nose. "What about you? If you don't like my movies, are you going to be a cricketer like your father and hit sixes into the crowd?"
Aadhya's face changed. Hands on her hips.
"No!" she said. "I will become the world's Number One tennis player!"
Venkatesh raised an eyebrow. "The world's Number One? That is a very big goal. You will have to practice very hard."
"I do practice hard!" Aadhya said. "I train with my Nana every morning when he is home, on our court. And I go to my coaching every day. I can hit the ball over the net very fast!"
"If you train with Siddanth Deva in the mornings, you will get to that ranking," Venkatesh said. He looked past her. A boy in a dark blue polo was at the glass, watching the crowd.
"And your brother?" Venkatesh asked. "What will he be?"
Aadhya looked at Rishi. "He likes books. And he talks about science a lot. I don't know, you ask him! Rishi! Come here!"
Rishi left the window and walked over. Hands at his sides.
"Hello, sir," Rishi said.
"Hello, Rishi," Venkatesh said. The sister had been the noise. The brother was the pause. "Your sister says you like books. What do you want to be? A captain? A coach?"
"I have not picked a dream yet, sir," Rishi said. The words were older than five. "I like reading. Right now I am doing what intrests me."
Venkatesh went with it.
"Well, Rishi, if you like reading," he said, "have you thought about acting? We read long scripts. We have to know every line."
Rishi looked at him.
"No thanks."
The box went quiet.
Then it went the other way. Venkatesh laughed and hit his own knee. Kavya bent over the plate. Krithika and Anjali held on to each other.
"He does not want to read your scripts!" Aadhya said.
"I have been humbled!" Venkatesh said, wiping his eyes, and he took Rishi's hand. "You stick to the books, my boy. The movie business is the wrong field for you."
Rishi shook the hand, then turned back to the glass and watch the game start. The Deva children had taken the box.
---
On the outfield, the PA came on over the stands.
Siddanth Deva walked out of the tunnel. Forty thousand saw the SRH captain and the noise came up off the stands. Beside him was Ruturaj Gaikwad, captain of Chennai Super Kings, in the job MS Dhoni had left.
They met in the middle. Deva shook his hand. Franchise rivals. India teammates.
The coin went up.
"Tails," Ruturaj called.
It came down on the dry turf. Heads.
Ravi Shastri stepped in. "Siddanth, you have won the toss at home. What is your decision?"
"We are going to field first, Ravi bhai," Deva said. "The pitch looks true and hard. There might be a little dew later, so we want to know the total. We want them quiet early, and the chase in our hands."
He named an unchanged eleven.
The toss ended. The captains turned for the dugouts.
Deva walked back in the Predator's Focus, already placing the powerplay field, eyes on the ropes.
He looked up at the glass box over the pavilion.
Krithika was at the pane. Aadhya and Rishi were against it. Aadhya waved both arms. Rishi waved once, like a batter acknowledging the umpire.
The match face went.
In the middle of the ground, with the cameras on him, Siddanth Deva stopped. He smiled and put his right hand up, a wave for his children.
The screens showed it. The ground made the noise it makes when a bowler waves at his kids.
He put his hand down as he crossed the rope. The father was done. The captain was back.
---
CSK walked out to orthodox fast bowling. Line and length. No freebies.
Deva did not want noise. He wanted the plan bowled.
Arjun Tendulkar had the new white Kookaburra. The left-arm quick pitched it up and got it to swing late into the right-handers. The openers were late on the front foot.
At the other end, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the swing king, gave them nothing. No width. At the stumps.
CSK could not get a start in the powerplay. The boundaries did not come. The dots did.
When Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ajinkya Rahane tried to go in the middle overs, Deva brought Mayank Markande and Shahbaz Ahmed. They used the grip. False shots. Wickets.
In the 14th, CSK wanted the finishers in. Shivam Dube, the left-hander who takes spin on, was set.
Deva gave his cap to the umpire. The ground came up. The captain was on.
He did not bowl a long spell. He bowled for the wicket.
He knew Dube wanted the ball full, so he could clear the front leg and hit through the line over long-on.
Deva ran in. He did not bowl full. Back of a length, into the ribs, 144. Dube had no room. He went for the pull. The ball hit the splice and sat up. Heinrich Klaasen came forward and took it.
The push for the death was broken.
Two overs. 10 runs. One wicket. The batter they did not want in at the death was gone. Deva went back to mid-off to run the rest.
T Natarajan took the death. Blockhole. Yorkers at the base of the stumps. MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja did not get the length they finish on.
Twenty overs.
CSK were 163 for 5.
On a true pitch, that was a total the chase could take. The home side had kept them there.
---
In the dressing room, 164 did not look like a problem.
Siddanth Deva looked at his openers, David Warner and Abhishek Sharma.
He did not give them a long talk.
"The pitch is flat. The ball is coming on. There is no scoreboard pressure," Deva said. "Do not leave their bowlers alone. Do not take ten balls to get in. I am giving you the license. Go and take the powerplay. If you get out, the middle order is there. Take the first six overs away from them."
Warner tapped his bat. Abhishek nodded.
They walked out.
They did not knock it around.
David Warner took strike against Deepak Chahar. He did not wait on the swing. Second ball, he went down the pitch and cut past point for four.
Abhishek met him. When the spinners came on early, he cleared his front leg and hit through the line, sixes over deep mid-wicket.
They cleared the rope often enough that the field stopped mattering.
Fifty in four overs. A hundred in the ninth. The CSK fielders watched the ball go into the stands.
In the 10th, Abhishek went inside-out over extra cover and was caught in the deep.
The ground stood up for him. The CSK bowlers got ten seconds.
Travis Head came in and played the same innings. He used the depth of the crease, pulled the quicks into the stands, and swept the spinners. The chase had started at eight an over. It was down to a run a ball.
Warner chopped on in the 13th, a fifty behind him. The chase was done in everything but the remaining runs.
The announcer came over the PA. The 40,000 came up as one.
Siddanth Deva walked down the steps.
He did not come out to nurdle the rest. He came out to finish it.
He took guard. He looked at the field. CSK were bowling to stay in the over, not to take a wicket.
He did not let them.
He picked a slower ball, came forward, and lofted it back over the bowler for six. He rocked back to the short one and pulled it past square leg for four. Orthodox shots. No gift.
In the 15th he came down the pitch, read the flight, and hit it into the second tier over long-on.
The match was over.
24 runs off 13 balls.
Sunrisers Hyderabad won in 15.2 overs. A chase that told the rest of the league what this batting order does when the pitch is true.
---
The noise came down. Both sides shook hands. The match was over. The players stayed.
The cameras found the middle.
Siddanth Deva and MS Dhoni stood together, out of the handshake line.
One still in his years as captain. One with the gray in the beard, done with the noise of it.
The ground chanted both names.
They were not talking about the chase.
"She does not look like she takes a drinks break, Sid," Dhoni said, looking up at the box. Aadhya was on the rail, waving.
Deva shook his head. "She does not, Mahi bhai. She is trouble. She chased Virat around the lawn with a sparkler at Diwali. I do not want the day she works out she is faster than the fielders."
Dhoni laughed, the laugh the cameras wait for. "Ziva was the same at that age. You think you are running an India side, and then you go home and a five-year-old does not listen to a single word."
"None," Deva said. "How is she? And Sakshi bhabi?"
"They are well," Dhoni said, weight on his bat. "Ziva is in school. Growing fast. And your boy? Rishi?"
"He's good. He is very mature and likes to read a lot," Deva said.
"He has your brain, Sid," Dhoni said, a hand on Deva's arm. "You were also always reading on the flight."
They talked the way two captains talk when the innings is over and the subject is home. A billion people on the outside. The conversation was the children.
A few of the SRH uncapped youngsters stood off. Bats and markers in their hands. They would not walk into that talk.
He turned to Dhoni.
"Mahi bhai," Deva said, a nod at the youngsters. "My boys have been on me for two weeks about this game. They have carried those bats around the room all day."
Dhoni looked over. He knew the look.
Deva waved them in. "Boys, Come here."
They came quickly.
"Mahi bhai, this is Nitish and Vijayakanth Viyaskanth," Deva said, and stepped back. "They wanted to say hello."
"Hello, boys," Dhoni said, and shook their hands. "You bowled well in the middle overs. Good control."
Nitish Kumar Reddy took a second. "Thank you, sir. It is an honor to meet you, sir."
"None of this 'sir'," Dhoni said. "Do you want those bats signed?"
They held the bats and the markers out.
Dhoni signed them and asked about their domestic seasons. Deva watched. He knew the look. He had worn it in his first India dressing room.
"Sid bhai, can you take a picture?" Vijayakanth Viyaskanth said, phone out.
Deva took the phone.
"Get in close, boys," he said.
Dhoni put an arm around each of them. Deva took the pictures.
The lights stayed on. The noise had settled. Deva with the phone. Dhoni with the two youngsters. The Orange Citadel had the win. The picture on the outfield was the rest of the night.