---
Tuesday morning arrived the way important mornings always do — slightly earlier than expected, with a quality of darkness that felt different from ordinary night.
Shivam was awake before the alarm. He had been awake, in fact, since four forty-five, lying on his cot in the warm dark with his eyes open, running through everything his uncle had told him about stance and weight distribution. By the time his father knocked softly on the door at five, he was already dressed.
His father looked at him standing ready in the doorway, kit bag — his old school bag repurposed — on his shoulder, and said nothing for a moment.
Then: "Let's go."
---
Shivaji Park at five-thirty in the morning was a different place from the Sunday version.
The Sunday park was democratic and chaotic and full of noise. The Tuesday morning park was serious. The light was still grey and low, the sea wind cutting in off the water with a cold edge that hadn't been there during the day. And in the nets along the eastern side, already moving, already working, were the boys of Kadam Cricket Academy.
Fourteen of them. Ages ranging from roughly ten to seventeen. All of them already into their warm-up routines when Shivam and his father arrived at five twenty-eight.
Suresh Kadam was a small, compact man in his mid-fifties with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a whistle around his neck that he appeared to use as a thinking tool, turning it over in his fingers when he was watching a player rather than blowing it. He had the economical movement of a man who had spent decades on cricket grounds and had learned that the game rewarded stillness over agitation.
He looked at Shivam when Ramesh introduced him, then at Ramesh, then back at Shivam.
"Dilip's recommendation," he said. Not a question.
"Yes, sir," Shivam said.
Kadam studied him the way his uncle had — the craftsman's assessment. But where his uncle had been sceptical and testing, Kadam's look was more clinical. More precise. He was cataloguing rather than judging.
"Age?"
"Ten."
"First time in a proper net?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know the difference between a proper net and what you've been doing in the compound?"
Shivam considered. "Harder balls. Faster bowlers. Less margin for error."
Kadam's expression didn't change, but the whistle-turning stopped for a moment.
"What else?"
"Feedback," Shivam said. "In the compound nobody tells you when you're doing something wrong. Here someone will."
The whistle started turning again. "Go join the warm-up," Kadam said. "Far end of the line. Watch what the others do and match it exactly."
Shivam dropped his bag by the boundary rope and jogged to the far end of the warm-up line.
---
The warm-up was serious.
Not brutal — these were boys, and Kadam understood the management of young bodies — but it was structured and deliberate in a way that the boys of the colony compound would not have recognised as belonging to the same sport. Dynamic stretching. High knees. Lateral shuffles. A specific set of shoulder rotations. Then a fielding drill — two parallel lines, a catch, a return, rotate.
Shivam fell in and matched it exactly as instructed, which was not difficult — his 30-year-old muscle memory had done variations of all of these movements thousands of times. What was difficult was calibrating the intensity to a 10-year-old body. He had to consciously hold back. Doing these movements at full adult effort in a child's body would end badly.
He was aware of the other boys clocking him. New boy, youngest-looking, doing the warm-up without a single uncertain glance at what came next. He knew it would register. He didn't try to show off, but he didn't try to hide either. Just matched the drill, clean and quiet.
A boy of about thirteen next to him — tall, quick-looking, with an easy athletic stride — gave him a sideways glance. "New?"
"Yes," Shivam said.
"Kadam sir is strict," the boy said. Not unkindly. Information.
"Good," Shivam said.
The boy looked at him for a moment, then went back to the drill.
---
Batting nets began at six.
Kadam split the group into two nets. Older boys in the first, younger in the second. Shivam was placed in the second net — himself and three other boys between the ages of ten and twelve.
He was put last in the batting order.
He stood outside the net and watched the first boy bat — a stocky eleven-year-old named Prashant who hit the ball hard and cross-batted everything. Three times in the first six balls he swung across the line and missed. Kadam watched from outside the net without a word.
The second boy was more technically correct — a neat, compact ten-year-old with good footwork who played everything on the up and hit nothing hard. Everything went softly back to the bowler. No risk, no reward.
The third boy was somewhere between them — some decent shots, some wild ones, no consistent pattern.
Shivam absorbed it all. The pace of the academy bowler — a sixteen-year-old throwing from about sixteen yards, pace around 60-65 km/h with the hard ball, genuinely sharp for this level. The variation in bounce from the concrete-base net surface. The light, still that early-morning grey that made the ball slightly harder to pick up.
When it was his turn he buckled the helmet — slightly too large, sitting low on his forehead — and walked into the net.
He took guard. Middle stump.
He took his stance — weight on the balls of the feet, back foot parallel to the crease, hands relaxed on the grip, head level, eyes on the bowler's hand.
The first ball was full and straight. He pushed forward with a straight bat, covered the line, let it come to him. Soft hands. The ball hit the middle of the bat and came back along the ground.
Technically correct. Not exciting. Exactly right.
The second ball was shorter. He watched it, watched it, rocked back — and played it down with a firm back-foot punch. Controlled. Along the ground.
The third ball the bowler tried a quicker one, flatter trajectory. Shivam was early on it — his weight committed too soon — and the ball hit the toe of the bat and squirted to leg.
Kadam, from outside the net, said: "Wait longer."
Shivam nodded. *I know. Old habit. It'll take time to recalibrate.*
The fourth ball — he waited. Let it come. Played it late, on the back foot, through the off-side. Correct.
The fifth was full outside off stump. He drove — not a wild drive, a measured front-foot cover drive, weight into it, head over the ball. The ball hit the middle of the bat and pinged off the net rope at pace.
The sixth was a short ball, angling into his body. He stood tall and clipped it off his hips. Neat, wristy, through mid-wicket.
Six balls. No sixes. No threes. No drama. But four correct shots, one miscue, and a correction applied.
Kadam held up a hand. The bowler stopped.
He walked to the net entrance and looked at Shivam.
"Come out," he said.
Shivam came out. Kadam walked him a few feet away from the net, away from the other boys.
"Who has coached you before?" he said.
"Nobody formally," Shivam said. "My uncle gave me some basics on Sunday."
Kadam looked at him steadily. "Two days ago."
"Yes, sir."
"And before that?"
"Just watching. And playing in the compound."
Kadam was quiet for a moment. He turned the whistle over in his fingers three times.
"The cover drive on ball five," he said. "Where did you learn that weight transfer?"
"I watched Dravid," Shivam said. "The way he gets his head over the ball on the front foot. I tried to copy it."
"You watched Dravid and copied his weight transfer."
"Yes, sir."
"At ten years old."
"Yes, sir."
Kadam looked at him for a long time. Then he said, "Go back in. Twenty more balls. I'm going to bowl them myself."
---
Kadam bowling was a different experience from the academy boy.
He was fifty-five years old and his pace was nothing, but his accuracy was surgical. Every ball hit exactly the line and length he intended. He could land the ball on a two-rupee coin from eighteen yards if he wanted to. And he varied — full, short, wide, straight, off-cutter, straight again — in a sequence that was not random but was not quite predictable either. He was testing, not practicing.
Shivam played each ball as correctly as he could.
Ball three: a good-length ball on off stump. He played forward, covered the line. Ball hit the bottom half of the bat. *Weight not fully forward.*
Ball seven: a full ball outside leg. He tried to flick — and the ball went fine leg, off the inner edge. *Got too fine, closed the face too early.*
Ball eleven: a slower ball, loopier trajectory, landed shorter than he expected. He was too far forward and the ball lobbed back off the splice toward the bowler. *Read the flight wrong. Committed too early.*
Ball fifteen: perfect length, dead straight. He watched it all the way, played a textbook defensive push. Nothing.
Ball eighteen: attempted yorker, full and straight. He got his bat down — but barely, the ball squeezing under the bat and hitting his toe.
Ball twenty: Kadam bowled a wide, tempting half-volley outside off stump. Shivam drove hard — but not controlled, reaching for it slightly, his head falling away from the line. The ball edged off the outer half of the bat into the net rope.
Kadam said nothing.
He walked into the net, picked up the ball, and stood beside Shivam.
"Eleven good balls," he said. "Nine errors. Tell me three of the errors."
Shivam thought. "Ball three — weight not far enough forward, hit low on the bat. Ball seven — closed the face too early on the flick, went too fine. Ball twenty — head fell away from the line on the drive, hit the outer half."
Kadam was very still.
"Four things," Shivam said, correcting himself. "Ball eleven — misread the flight, committed forward too early."
Kadam looked at him.
"You diagnosed your own errors," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"While you were batting."
"Yes, sir."
Kadam turned the whistle over once. "How?"
"I feel where the ball hits the bat," Shivam said. "If it's not the middle, I know something in the movement was wrong. And I know what the movement was supposed to feel like, so I can usually work backwards to find what broke."
"You feel the bat face."
"Yes, sir."
Kadam was quiet. Then he looked out across the park, where the morning had brightened now, the sun clearing the buildings on the eastern side, turning the Shivaji Park grass from grey to green. Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. A train horn sounded on the Harbour Line.
He said, without looking at Shivam: "What do you want?"
"To play for India," Shivam said.
"Every boy here wants to play for India."
"I know."
"So what is different about you?"
Shivam thought about this carefully. The honest answer was: *I've already lived one cricket life and I know exactly what went wrong.* The usable answer was something else.
"I know what I don't know," he said finally. "Most boys my age think they're good. I know I'm not good yet. I know what good looks like, and I know how far away from it I am. That means I know what I need to do."
Kadam looked at him.
"And what is it that you need to do?" he said.
"Fix the weight transfer. Fix the head position on the drive. Fix the flight-reading. Build stamina. Build bowling. Learn to play spin." Shivam paused. "And not get injured."
"Not get injured," Kadam repeated.
"That's the most important one," Shivam said.
A very long pause.
Then Suresh Kadam put the whistle to his lips and blew it once — the signal for the group to rotate to the next drill.
He looked down at Shivam.
"Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday," he said. "Five-thirty. Don't be late. I'll tell you once and not again: if you are late, you wait outside until I invite you in. Lateness means your mind arrived before your commitment did."
"Yes, sir," Shivam said.
"You'll start with fielding fundamentals. Every new student starts with fielding, regardless of what they think they're here for. Fielding is how I learn who a cricketer actually is."
"Yes, sir."
Kadam started to turn away. Then he stopped.
"The cover drive on ball five in the first set," he said. "Don't change it. Whatever you've been doing to build that — keep doing it."
He walked away toward the other net.
---
Shivam's father was waiting at the boundary rope with two cups of chai bought from the vendor who set up at the park gate every morning, a piece of furniture as fixed and reliable as the nets themselves.
He handed one cup to Shivam without a word.
They stood and drank their chai and watched the other sessions running on the main ground — four simultaneous club matches, already an hour deep, the sound of leather and wood and appeals carrying across the grass.
After a while his father said: "How was it?"
Shivam thought about the twenty balls. About the errors and the diagnoses. About Kadam's face when he recited them back. About the last thing Kadam had said.
"Good," he said. "Hard."
"Hard is good?"
"Hard is essential," Shivam said.
His father drank his chai. He was quiet for a moment, watching the cricket.
"Your uncle called last night," he said. "After we got home Sunday. He said something to me."
Shivam looked up at him.
"He said: *'The boy already knows things he shouldn't know yet. Don't ask him how. Just make sure someone teaches him things he doesn't know yet, before he stops believing he needs to be taught anything.'*"
Shivam was quiet.
"What did he mean?" his father asked.
Shivam thought about it. "He meant I have to be careful not to think I already know everything. Because I don't." He paused. "Even if I know some things early."
His father looked at him sideways — that same look from the evening of the first conversation. The look that said: *I am reading something in you that I don't fully understand, but I believe it.*
He finished his chai, crushed the small paper cup, put it in the bin by the rope.
"Come on," he said. "You have school."
---
They walked back to the bus stop through the morning park. The sun was fully up now, warm and golden on the Shivaji Park grass, the city noise rising around them, Mumbai fully awake and operational and indifferent to the ten-year-old boy walking through it with a school bag on his shoulder and a head full of cricket and a plan.
The system panel appeared in the corner of his vision, soft and unobtrusive.
```
════════════════════════════════════
★ TEMPLATE SYSTEM ★
════════════════════════════════════
HOST : SHIVAM DUBE
STATUS : Active | Age 10 | Day 5
FIRST FORMAL NET SESSION COMPLETE ✓
PERFORMANCE LOG
════════════════════════════════════
Balls faced : 26
Correct shots : 17
Errors identified : 9
Errors self-diagnosed : 4 / 4
ATTRIBUTE UPDATES
════════════════════════════════════
Batting [F ] → [F+]
(Self-correction ability
logged. Marginal gain.)
Fielding [F ] — No data yet
Cricket IQ [B+] — Stable
COACH ASSIGNED : Suresh Kadam ✓
SCHEDULE : Tue / Thu / Sat
05:30 — Shivaji Park
NEXT MILESTONE
════════════════════════════════════
Complete 10 formal net sessions.
Batting attribute must reach [E]
before first competitive match
is recommended.
Current : [F+]
Required : [E]
Sessions est.: 15 — 20
(depending on
training intensity)
SYSTEM NOTE
════════════════════════════════════
"You found a good coach, Host.
Kadam has produced three
first-class cricketers and
one India Under-19 player
in the last decade.
He does not waste time on
players he does not believe in.
He kept you for twenty balls
and then twenty more.
That tells you something."
════════════════════════════════════
```
Shivam read it on the bus, his father sitting beside him reading the morning paper, the city going past the window.
*He kept you for twenty balls and then twenty more.*
He looked out at the city.
Six weeks and one day until the MCA Under-12 trials.
He had a coach. He had a schedule. He had a plan.
He had a lot of work to do.
*Let's get to it.*
---
**— End of Chapter 4 —**
---
```
★ CAREER STATS — END OF CHAPTER 4 ★
OFFICIAL (Competitive matches only)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Format Mat Inns Runs HS Avg SR 100s 50s Wkts
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
First Class 0 0 0 — — — 0 0 0
List A 0 0 0 — — — 0 0 0
T20 0 0 0 — — — 0 0 0
INFORMAL LOG (Gully/Colony)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Games : 1 | Runs : 14 | Dismissals : 0 | Wkts : 0
TRAINING LOG
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Formal net sessions : 1
Balls faced (nets) : 26
Correct shots logged : 17
Coach : Suresh Kadam
Next session : Thursday, March 22, 2001
MCA U-12 Trial : ~6 weeks away
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
ATTRIBUTE TRACKER
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Batting [F+] Bowling [F] Fielding [F]
Fitness [F] Cricket IQ [B+]
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
```
---