The walk back to the pavilion felt longer than the entire innings. The roar of the Mohali crowd, which had been a deafening physical force for the last three hours, was now muffling into a dull, rhythmic thumping in Siddanth Deva's ears. His body was a wreck. His hamstrings were screaming, his forearms burned from the lactic acid buildup of swinging the heavy willow, and his jersey was so soaked in sweat it clung to him like a second skin.
He had scored 264 runs. Not Out. In a World Cup Semi-Final. Against Pakistan.
He climbed the steps, the concrete vibrating under his spikes. He passed the sight screen, and as he turned the corner into the long corridor leading to the Indian dressing room, the noise of the crowd finally cut out, replaced by a sudden, heavy silence.
Then, the dressing room door swung open.
It wasn't a polite applause. It was an explosion.
The entire Indian squad—support staff, bench players, and the playing XI—were lined up in a makeshift tunnel. Gary Kirsten, usually the stoic South African monk, was grinning so wide his eyes had disappeared. He was the first to grab Deva, pulling the sweaty, exhausted 20-year-old into a hug that smelled of deep heat spray and victory.
"Unreal," Kirsten whispered, slapping his back. "Simply unreal."
As Deva stumbled through the gauntlet, he was assaulted by affection. Harbhajan Singh grabbed his head, messing up his already matted hair. "Oye Shera! (O Tiger!) What did you eat this morning? Cement? Iron?"
Yuvraj Singh, the Prince of Punjab, was laughing hysterically, shaking his head as he leaned against a locker. "I told you to save some for the final, you greedy idiot! You finished the quota for the next two World Cups today!"
Deva managed a weak, exhausted smile, finally collapsing onto his designated bench. He began to unbuckle his pads, his fingers trembling slightly from the adrenaline crash.
Sachin Tendulkar walked over. He looked down at the young man who had just shattered every record in the book. Tendulkar didn't say anything at first. He just sat down next to Deva, poured a cup of water, and handed it to him.
"I carried the burden of this nation for twenty years, Sid," Sachin said softly, his voice cutting through the banter of the room. "And today, I watched you carry it like it was a feather."
Deva lowered the cup, looking at his idol. "I just wanted to stay with you, Paaji."
"Stay with me?" Sachin laughed, a rare, hearty sound. "You went past me so fast I got windburn. That was... perfection."
"Perfection?" Virender Sehwag chimed in, munching on a banana, his feet up on a massage table. "It was okay. A bit slow in the beginning. If I played 130 balls, I would have scored 300."
The room erupted in laughter.
"Viru pa, please," Virat Kohli walked in, still wearing his helmet, looking like he had just run a marathon himself. He threw his gear into the corner and pointed at Deva. "This guy is a mutant. I was at the non-striker's end. I heard the sound the bat made. It wasn't a 'thuck'. It was a 'bang'. Every single time. And the running! He made me vomit!"
MS Dhoni, cool as ever, walked over with a towel over his shoulder. He looked at the scoreboard on the TV screen in the corner: INDIA 428/2.
"Well," Dhoni drawled, his face deadpan. "At least we have a defendable total."
"Defendable?!" Raina shouted. "Mahi bhai, they need a new scoreboard! They don't have enough digits for the required run rate!"
Dhoni smirked, looking down at Deva. "The helicopter shot was decent. A bit too much wrist, not enough bottom hand. We'll work on it in the nets."
"Nets?" Zaheer Khan groaned from the physio table. "Don't let him into the nets. He'll kill the bowlers. I'm not bowling to him for at least a month."
Ashish Nehra leaned in, poking Deva's bicep. "Sid, tell the truth. That switch hit off Afridi. Did you plan it, or did your hands just slip?"
"He moved the field," Deva murmured, his voice hoarse. "He put everyone on the leg side. There was no one at point. It just... felt right."
"It just 'felt right' to hit a 100mph leg-spin for six with the wrong hand," Yuvraj mocked, rolling his eyes. "Listen to him. The Devil indeed."
As the team began to settle down, getting ready to take the field, Deva leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. The banter washed over him—a warm, protective blanket. They were teasing him to keep him grounded, to normalize the abnormal thing he had just done.
---
Meanwhile, in the Comm Box Studio
The bright lights of the broadcast studio illuminated the glass desk where four men sat in varying states of disbelief. Behind them, the panoramic window showed the PCA Stadium, buzzing with a nervous energy as the ground staff rolled the heavy roller over the pitch.
Harsha Bhogle, the anchor, looked into the camera, took a deep breath, and shook his head.
"Welcome back to the mid-innings show," Harsha began, his voice trembling slightly. "I have been watching cricket for thirty years. I have seen Richards, I have seen Tendulkar, I have seen Lara, and I have seen Sehwag. But ladies and gentlemen, what we witnessed in the last three and a half hours... I don't have the vocabulary for it. India has posted 428 for 2. And 263 of those runs belong to one man. Siddanth Deva."
Harsha turned to the panel. To his left sat the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. To his right, the former Pakistan captain and swing king, Wasim Akram. And on the far end, the exuberant Ravi Shastri.
"Sunny bhai," Harsha started. "Where do we even begin?"
Sunil Gavaskar adjusted his glasses, looking down at his notepad which was covered in scribbles. "Harsha, you know I am a purist. I believe in the 'V'. I believe in high elbows and playing in the line of the ball. For the first fifty runs, Deva played like a textbook. He was classical. He respected the good balls."
Gavaskar paused, tapping the table. "But then... then he decided that the textbook was too small. He wrote his own encyclopedia. That shot off Wahab Riaz in the 50th over—the tennis smash through mid-wicket? That is not cricket. That is dominance. That is a young man telling the world, 'I can hit you wherever I want, whenever I want.' It wasn't slogging. It was calculated assault. He changed the geometry of the ground."
"Calculated?" Wasim Akram interjected, leaning forward, his face a mixture of admiration and shell-shock. "Sunny, with all due respect, that wasn't calculation. That was humiliation."
Akram pointed to the screen where a replay of the switch-hit six off Afridi was playing. "Look at this. Shahid is the captain. He changes the field. He bowls a dart to cramp the batsman. Any normal player blocks this. Deva? He turns into a left-hander! Against a ball coming in at 100 clicks! And he hits it 85 meters!"
Akram threw his hands up. "I was a bowler. If a batsman did that to me, I would walk off. I would literally walk off the field. Because what is the point? You cannot set a field for a ghost. You cannot set a field for a man who has no blind spot. He destroyed the morale of the Pakistan bowling unit. Wahab Riaz was bowling 150kph reverse swing, and Deva was scooping him like he was a medium pacer in a park game."
"That's the word, Wasim!" Ravi Shastri boomed, unable to stay in his seat. "Morale! This innings wasn't just about runs. It was about psychological warfare! This is a World Cup Semi-Final! The pressure is supposed to crush you! You are supposed to be nervous!"
Shastri pointed a finger at the camera. "But look at his eyes. He was cold. He was emotionless. When he reached 200, he didn't jump around. He dropped the bat. He dropped the bat like a mic drop! That is attitude. That is saying, 'I am the King here.' And to do that against the arch-rivals? He has finished the game before Pakistan has even batted."
Harsha nodded. "Let's talk about that 200. It came in 112 balls. But then he scored the next 63 runs in just 22 balls. The acceleration at the end... it defied logic."
"It defied physics," Gavaskar added. "You see, usually, a batsman gets tired. The muscles cramp. The focus wavers. We saw Deva cramping in the 48th over. But instead of slowing down, he stopped running and started hitting sixes. That helicopter shot off Umar Gul... that requires immense wrist strength. To do that after batting for three hours? That shows his fitness. That shows his hunger."
"And let's not forget the partnership," Shastri noted. "Sachin was brilliant. But look at Virat Kohli. He scored 49 not out. He had the best seat in the house. You could see Kohli laughing at the end. He was laughing because it was absurd! When your partner is scoring 263, you just stand there and applaud."
Harsha signaled to the production team. "I want to pull up a specific graphic. The Wagon Wheel."
The screen behind them lit up. It was a chaotic mess of yellow lines radiating in every single direction. It looked less like a cricket chart and more like a star explosion.
"Look at this," Akram said, tracing the lines. "Fine leg, third man, long off, deep mid-wicket, cow corner. There is not a single blade of grass at Mohali that wasn't covered. But the most frightening thing? 70% of his runs came in front of the wicket. He didn't just swipe. He drove. He pulled. He punched. This was a technically superior innings masked as a rampage."
"I want to talk about the parents," Harsha said, his voice softening. "We saw the shots of Vikram Deva and Sesikala in the VIP box."
"That was the moment for me," Shastri said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming serious. "Vikram Deva. We know the story. The middle-class struggle. The early morning bike rides to the academy. The sacrifices. When Deva reached his century and pointed the bat... that wasn't for the crowd. That was a receipt. That was him saying, 'It was worth it.' And when he hit the 263? I saw Vikram. He wasn't cheering. He was weeping. That is the weight of a father's dream being realized on the biggest stage of all."
"It is the Great Indian Dream," Gavaskar agreed. "From the streets to the stadium. But Harsha, we have to ask... how does Pakistan recover from this?"
Wasim Akram sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Harsha, to be honest? You don't. You can chase 300. You can maybe dream of 350 on a flat deck. But 428? Mentally, they are on the flight back to Lahore. It is a psychological blow that will last for a generation. Wahab Riaz will see Deva in his nightmares."
"So," Harsha asked, "Is the match over?"
"The match was over when Deva crossed 150," Shastri declared. "Now, it is just a formality. We are just waiting to see if India wins by 150 runs or 200 runs."
"Cricket is a funny game," Gavaskar warned cautiously. "But... 263 by one man. That is more than the average team total in this tournament. I think we can safely say the Devil has put one foot in the Final."
Harsha looked at the camera as the production music began to swell. "We are getting reports that the players are walking back out. Dhoni is leading the team out. Listen to that noise."
The audio feed from the stadium was faded up. The chant was rhythmic, tribal, and overwhelming.
"DE-VA! DE-VA! DE-VA!"
"He has united the nation," Harsha said. "263 Not Out. A number that will be etched in gold. Stay tuned, folks. Pakistan has a mountain to climb, but they are climbing it against a team that has a giant in its ranks."
---
While the dressing room was a chaotic mix of sweat and joy, the atmosphere in the air-conditioned, glass-fronted VIP Corporate Box was one of stunned reverence. The sound of the crowd was muffled here, replaced by the hum of the climate control and the clinking of fine crystal.
Vikram Deva stood gripping the railing, staring blankly at the pitch where his son had just rewritten history. His knuckles were white. He was a man suspended in a dream, afraid that if he let go of the railing, he would wake up back in his old house, worrying about the electricity bill.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned to see Aamir Khan, the Bollywood perfectionist, standing there. The actor didn't look like a superstar; he looked like a fanboy. He bowed slightly, hands pressed together.
"Sir," Aamir said, his voice genuine. "I make movies. We write scripts. We create heroes. But what your son wrote down there today... no scriptwriter in Bombay could have imagined that. You have raised a giant."
Vikram tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He simply nodded, his eyes welling up again.
Behind him, Sesikala was surrounded. She was seated, overwhelmed, clutching her handbag as if it were a lifeline. Anjali Tendulkar, the wife of the God of Cricket, sar beside her, holding her hand.
"He reminds me of Sachin in '98," Anjali said softly, offering a tissue. "That same hunger. That same fire. You must be so proud, Mrs. Deva."
"I... I just wanted him to get a job," Sesikala whispered, her voice trembling. "We saved for years for his kit. I used to scold him for breaking windows. And now..." She gestured helplessly at the ocean of blue in the stands, thousands of people still chanting her son's name.
"Now he owns the stadium," Sakshi Dhoni finished for her, smiling warmly as she handed Sesikala a bottle of water. "Mahi says Sid is the calmest boy he's ever seen. Now I know where he gets it from. You are shaking, Aunty. Drink this."
The box was a who's who of India. Industrialists who moved the stock market with a phone call were waiting in line to shake Vikram's hand. Politicians who usually commanded rooms were standing back, giving the Deva family their moment.
A prominent business tycoon walked up, extending a hand to Vikram. "Mr. Deva, I own a few companies. If Siddanth ever needs a sponsor, or if you ever need anything... anything at all... here is my card. Today, your son made us all feel ten feet tall."
Vikram straightened his back. He wasn't just a middle-class father anymore. He was the father of the Devil.
"Thank you," Vikram said, his voice finally finding its strength. "But my son plays for the country first. The rest... the rest will follow."
----
If the Indian dressing room was a carnival, the Pakistan dressing room was a tomb.
The door clicked shut, sealing out the noise of the stadium, but the silence inside was heavier, more oppressive. The players were slumped in their chairs. Wahab Riaz, the fastest bowler of the day, sat with his towel over his head, staring at the floor tiles. His figures—10 overs, 0 wickets, 105 runs—were a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. Umar Gul, usually the spearhead, looked shell-shocked, unbuckling his shoes with slow, robotic movements.
Shahid Afridi, the captain, stood by the window, looking out at the pitch. He didn't speak. He couldn't. As a leader, he had thrown every weapon in his arsenal at the boy—pace, spin, yorkers, bouncers, sledging. The boy had swallowed it all and spat it back as fire.
Misbah-ul-Haq, the senior statesman, sat in the corner, sipping water. His eyes were wide, blinking rapidly, as if trying to erase the memory of the last ten overs where the ball seemed to vanish into the night sky repeatedly.
For five minutes, no one spoke. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, muffled chant of "Deva... Deva..." penetrating the walls like a haunting.
Then, the door opened.
Waqar Younis, the coach and a legend of the game, walked in. He didn't look angry. He didn't look defeated. He looked intense.
He walked to the center of the room and clapped his hands once. Sharp. Loud.
"Heads up!" Waqar barked. "Heads up, right now!"
Slowly, the players looked up.
"What is this?" Waqar gestured around the room. "Is the match over? Did the umpire call stumps? I must have missed it. Because last I checked, we have 50 overs to bat."
"Coach..." Umar Gul started, his voice cracking. "429 runs... it's..."
"It is a number," Waqar cut him off, his voice rising. "It is a mountain, yes. But have we not climbed mountains before? We are Pakistan! We are the Cornered Tigers! We play our best when the world thinks we are dead and buried!"
He paced the room, making eye contact with every player.
"Listen to me. That boy played an innings of a lifetime. Maybe the best innings ever played. Accept it. Respect it. And then... forget it."
He grabbed a whiteboard marker and wrote 429 on the board. Then he drew a line through it.
"Don't look at 429," Waqar said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "If you look at the mountain, you will get dizzy. Look at the next step. Just the next step."
He turned to Mohammad Hafeez and Kamran Akmal, the openers.
"Hafeez. Kamran. I don't want heroics. I don't want you to try and hit 400 in 10 overs. I want you to survive. The new ball will swing under lights. Zaheer is tricky. Give him the first hour. Play sensibly. Leaves the good balls. Respect the conditions."
He leaned in closer. "The crowd is buzzing. They think they have won. If we don't lose a wicket in the first 10 overs... the crowd will go quiet. And when an Indian crowd goes quiet, the Indian team gets nervous. That is your goal. Silence the crowd. Not with sixes, but with defense. With partnerships."
He turned to the middle order—Younis Khan, Misbah, Umar Akmal.
"You are the engine. Once the ball gets old, the dew will come down. The ball will skid. It will be beautiful for batting. If we have wickets in hand at over 30... anything is possible. T20 cricket has taught us that 15 runs an over is possible."
Waqar stood tall, putting a hand over the crest on his chest.
"They have put a massive score on the board. Fine. But remember who you are. You play for the millions back home who are glued to their TV screens, praying for a miracle. Do not let their heads drop. Do not let them see you scared."
He looked at Afridi. "Shahid. Lead them. Go out there and show them that a tiger fights until the last breath. If we go down, we go down swinging. We go down fighting. We do not surrender."
Afridi nodded, the fire returning to his eyes. He stood up, clapping his hands. "Coach is right! Come on boys! It's a flat deck! The outfield is lightning! If he can hit, so can we! Let's go out there and make history!"
The lethargy in the room broke. Players started strapping on pads with renewed vigor. The fear was still there, lurking in the corners, but it was now masked by a desperate, defiant hope.
"For the flag!" Misbah shouted.
"For Pakistan!" the team roared back, though a few voices wavered.
They picked up their bats, adjusted their helmets, and lined up at the door. They were walking out to face a record-breaking total, walking out into a cauldron of noise, but they were walking out.
---
The bell rang. The break was over.
Deva splashed cold water on his face in the Indian dressing room. He looked in the mirror. His eyes were red, his face flushed, but the adrenaline was still humming under his skin. He put his cap on, pulling the brim low.
"Ready?" Dhoni asked, tossing him the ball. "You're standing at mid-off. Don't fall asleep."
Deva caught the ball. "I'm awake, Skipper."
"Good," Dhoni grinned. "Because now you have to field for 50 overs."
Deva groaned, and the team laughed, breaking the tension. They walked out of the dressing room, spikes clacking on the floor. As they reached the boundary rope, the noise hit them again—a wall of sound. But this time, it wasn't intimidating. It was welcoming. It was fuel.
Deva crossed the rope, and 35,000 people stood up.
He didn't wave. He didn't bow. He just adjusted his cap, jogged to his position, and waited for the first ball. The batting was done. The carnage was over. Now, it was time to defend the fortress he had built.