The IPL is not only a tournament. It is flights, hotel lobbies, bus rides, and a different pitch every few days. To last two months you need the body for it. To top the table you need more than that.
As April turned to May, Sunrisers Hyderabad stopped playing to last. They played to take the game in the powerplay.
The fields Deva had talked through in the team hotel were batted and bowled on the pitches. Other sides ran out of answers.
The trouble started in the powerplay.
The SRH top three became a bad over for the quicks of the league. They did not feel for the new white Kookaburra. They did not play themselves in. The first ball was the plan.
David Warner set it. Deep in the crease. Back-of-a-length balls pulled into the deep mid-wicket stands.
At the other end, Abhishek Sharma played with a captain who had told him to take the over. A high backlift. He did not care which spinner had the ball. He used his feet, came down the pitch, and hit inside-out over extra cover. The fielding restrictions did not hold him.
The point of the top order was Travis Head.
He hit through the line. Front leg clear. Flat bat. Bowlers looking for the corridor outside off got a cut that was through the infield before the fielder moved.
The runs at the top changed what the broadcast put on the screen.
Night after night, the run charts came up.
At the top of the Orange Cap list was Virat Kohli, for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, hundreds that carried his side.
Under him, the list was orange.
Travis Head second, the tally made in the powerplay. David Warner third. Abhishek Sharma fourth, in the tournament at this weight of runs for the first time.
Three batters from one side in the top four. Captains stood at mid-off with their hands on their hips. Full, and it was driven. Short, and it was pulled. No length held. The chase was behind the rate before the field spread.
A top order at that pace does not come off every night. A pitch turns. The hands get early.
The night it stopped was against the Rajasthan Royals. Dry. Abrasive. Turn. Two-paced bounce.
Trying to force it against the grip, the top order went. The bat came early. No pace off the surface. Edges. Catches in the deep.
Before the powerplay was done, the board read 30 for 3.
The ground, full of the other side's people, came up. The close fielders walked into the thirty-yard circle. They wanted the rest of the card.
In the dugout, pads already on, Deva did not show a tell.
He raised a hand. The move was already in the plan.
The announcer confirmed it. Impact Player.
Kane Williamson walked out.
Other sides used the Impact Player for another hitter, or a spinner the batter had not seen. Deva had held Williamson, the orthodox batter, for the innings that was falling over.
Deva walked out to him on the turning pitch.
The next fourteen overs were not the innings the campaign had been. The aerial shots stayed in the kitbag.
They batted the way you bat when the ball is holding. They saw the spinners off.
They rotated the strike until the spell had nothing left.
Williamson played with soft hands. The ball under his eyes. He opened the face late and guided it past slip for one. Deva used the depth of the crease, went back, and punched the slow ball through the covers.
No boundary for seven overs. They did not need one.
They ran. A tap on the leg side, and two. The fielders chased. The work moved from the batters to the field.
The bowlers, up after the early wickets, lost the over. Quicker, and it came off the pads. Wider, and it was pushed into the gap.
The rate, which had fallen, came back to a total you could bowl at.
They walked off soaked. A total you could defend. The bowling then took the game. Another win.
The rest of the league watched it back. SRH were not only a side that hit in the powerplay. Under that was an innings that could be rebuilt. Deva and Williamson had the method.
The tournament asked for bodies as well as batting. Travel. Late games. Spells.
In the team gym there was no broadcast and no crowd.
Deva stood by the glass, a towel on his neck, watching Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Bhuvi sat on a recovery bench. Ice on the lower right calf and the hamstring. Eyes shut. The ice after every spell, for the leg that fills up.
Deva pulled a box over and sat beside him.
No talk. They both knew the leg.
He looked at the ice. He knew a fast bowler's front foot, and he knew what the physio's report said. The leg was one hard spell away from missing the next game.
A truth sat between the captain and his swing bowler.
The 2024 T20 World Cup, in the Caribbean and the United States, was close. The country wanted a squad that could lift it. A fit Bhuvneshwar Kumar with the new ball is the swing bowler you open with.
Sitting in that gym, Deva knew he would not pick him for the World Cup.
A knockout tournament, a spell at full pace every third day, would finish the leg. He was as sure of that as he was of a holding pitch.
He was already cutting the workload in the IPL. He did not ask for four overs if the game did not need them. On grounds that took it out of the front foot, he left him out and bowled younger legs. Bhuvi bowled when the ball might swing.
Bhuvi opened his eyes.
He smiled. No bitterness. He was not asking for World Cup spell.
He knew why. Deva was not leaving him out because the swing had gone. He was leaving him out so the leg would still be there after the tournament. A friend, not a quota of overs.
The understanding was there. Deva would watch the overs. Bhuvi would still bowl the swinging ball in orange. He would not be bowled into the ground.
Bhuvi nodded, head back against the wall. Mentor. New-ball swing when the match asked for it. The leg looked after.
While the senior was managed, another bowler was being built in the room.
The sessions in Deva's suite were about lines. The board showed release points, the shape of the swing, and where the batter's feet went.
The sessions were about Arjun Tendulkar.
Left-arm. Tall. A run-up that came at the batter. Bounce from the height. The angle across the right-hander.
The pieces were there. They still had to be bowled as a spell.
Deva watched the seam at release. A small movement of the fingers brought the white Kookaburra back into the right-hander's pads, late.
That inswinger, late and dipping, became the ball the attack was built on.
On the field, the fields from the room were set.
Deva stood at mid-off. He did not give Arjun a stock field. The field was for that ball.
A mid-on so straight it asked the batter to hit square. A man deep at backward square leg, for the top edge when they tried to pull the inswinger that got big on them.
Arjun bowled the field he was shown.
He hit the length they had marked. Late swing. Under the bat. Edges. Pads. Stumps.
He took top orders in the powerplay and bowled the blockhole at the death. The catches went where the field had been put. The Master Architect had walked the ball there before it was bowled.
By the end of the league, the screen told the rest.
On Arjun Tendulkar's head, the Purple Cap. He had gone past the overseas quicks and the spinners. Most wickets in the league stage.
A bowler with the tools, and a captain who had given him the field.
TABLE TOPPERS
The league stage ended. The points table was the record.
The screens showed the SRH card.
Fourteen matches.
11 wins.
2 losses.
1 abandoned, rain.
They were top of the points table. In the playoffs, with a net run rate that made the other sides look up at the card.
In the home dressing room, nobody opened a bottle.
The doors were shut. The staff stood by the lockers.
Siddanth Deva stood in the middle. No champagne. No smile for a side that had won the league phase.
He looked at David Warner, Kane Williamson, Travis Head, and Arjun Tendulkar, the Purple Cap on his knee.
The look was the next game, not this table.
Eleven wins. The rates. The caps. The league was the warm-up. The tournament that counts is the one with no next game if you lose.
The points were no longer a cushion. Knockout cricket does not care about the table. He was already on Qualifier 1. Two months of wins were a used pitch. The fields for the next match were the job.
The side that had taken games in the powerplay was intact. The next match was the one that would count.