The bandit matter had ended the way such matters rarely ended in Punjab—cleanly.
Not because the world had become kinder, but because Sandalbar had begun to operate like a machine: information first, movement second, violence last. The confiscated weapons were catalogued. The kidnapped were recovered. The loot was sealed, counted, and handed into Harrington's administrative chain so that the Crown could distribute it publicly, with banners, clerks, and a dignity the villages had never seen.
Order, for a moment, felt steady.
And that is precisely when Bilal chose to speak of cricket.
It happened at Headquarters, in the late afternoon, when the day's reports had already been read and the yard outside was beginning to empty. The air carried the sharp smell of disinfectant and damp earth. Farabi teams were rotating in, wireless sets being checked, medicine boxes being refilled.
Jinnah stood at the veranda rail, watching the last of the queues dissolve into the village roads.
He looked satisfied, but not relaxed.
Satisfaction, Bilal knew, made men careless.
We need a game, Bilal said.
Jinnah did not turn. "Explain."
Not for entertainment, Bilal added quickly, as if anticipating Jinnah's scorn. For structure. For absorption. For identity. These men have learned to move in packs—first as fugitives, then as bandits, then as your perimeter wall. If you don't give them a new instinct, the old one returns.
Jinnah's eyes stayed on the yard. "And your remedy is sport."
Cricket, Bilal corrected. A team. A schedule. Rules. A harmless obsession that looks acceptable to the Crown. It eats idle hours the way discipline eats chaos.
Jinnah was silent for a moment, measuring the idea.
Then he said, "Who will play?"
Bilal's answer came without hesitation.
Madho's men and the Farabis. You built them as a wall. Now build them as a unit that learns coordination without blood.
Jinnah's mouth tightened faintly. "Madho's men are farmers."
They are fighters pretending to be farmers, Bilal replied. Their hands still remember what they used to be. Give those hands a bat instead of a blade.
Jinnah turned away from the veranda.
"Ahmed," he called.
Ahmed Khan appeared as if summoned by routine rather than voice. Ledger in hand. Expression controlled.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Tomorrow morning," Jinnah said, "clear the yard behind the store sheds. I want space."
Ahmed blinked. "For what purpose?"
Jinnah's tone stayed even.
"For trials," he said. "Physical trials."
Ahmed hesitated—then nodded. He had learned not to ask "why" too early.
The Selection
By sunrise, the yard behind Headquarters looked different.
Not like a parade ground. Like a crude sports field—flattened soil, stones cleared, lines roughly marked with white chalk and ash.
Farabis stood in small groups, watching with guarded curiosity. Madho's newly settled men stood farther back—rougher, leaner, scarred in ways farming did not usually produce.
They had been told to report.
No one knew why.
Bilal stood in Jinnah's mind like a coach who had been waiting his whole life for a whistle.
Start with speed, Bilal said. Speed never lies.
Jinnah stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back.
"Short sprints," he announced.
The men exchanged looks.
One Farabi, a veteran with a stiff shoulder, raised his chin. "Sir, is this drill?"
"It is selection," Jinnah replied.
That word landed differently.
Selection meant opportunity. It meant status. It meant a new place in the machine.
Ahmed marked a line in the dirt.
"From here to the neem tree," he said. "Then back. No excuses."
The first group ran.
Boots and bare feet kicked dust. Breath rose in white bursts. The fastest men didn't look heroic; they looked efficient. They accelerated cleanly, as if their bodies had already been trained by something harsher than sport.
Ahmed counted times under his breath and wrote them down.
A Farabi corporal, lean as wire, returned first twice in a row.
A man from Madho's people—older than he looked, with a scar across his forearm—came second, then first, then first again.
Jinnah watched without expression.
Pick the ones whose breathing recovers quickly, Bilal murmured. Not just speed. Recovery. That's endurance. That's fielding.
Jinnah's gaze narrowed slightly. He gave Ahmed a small nod.
Ahmed began to circle names on his sheet.
When the sprints ended, the yard fell quiet except for coughing and laughter that pretended the exercise was amusing rather than humiliating.
Then Jinnah delivered the second question.
"Who among you has played cricket?" he asked.
Silence.
Some men looked away as if cricket was a foreign language.
Two hands rose slowly.
One Farabi, younger, with city schooling in his posture. Another man from Madho's group—thin, cautious, his accent closer to the canal colonies.
They stepped forward.
Ahmed frowned as if disappointed. "Only two?"
"That is enough," Jinnah said.
Bilal laughed softly inside his mind.
Experience is rare. Don't worship it. Most 'experienced' players are slow anyway. You can train technique. You can't train hunger.
Jinnah looked again at the sprint list. Neither of the cricket men were among the fastest.
Ahmed noticed the same and frowned harder, unsure whether to speak.
Jinnah spoke first.
"They will not be dismissed," he said calmly. "They will be used."
He turned slightly, scanning the men again.
"And who among you plays gilli danda?" he asked.
This question changed everything.
A few men smirked. Some straightened. This, at least, was familiar.
Five men stepped forward almost immediately, grinning like boys caught with stolen sugar.
One Farabi, broad-shouldered, twirled an imaginary stick.
A man from Madho's people mimed the flick of the "gilli" into the air.
Ahmed's eyes widened slightly.
"These are village games, Sir."
Jinnah's tone was unbothered.
"Village games create timing," he replied. "Timing creates batting."
Bilal's voice was pleased.
Exactly. Gilli danda teaches hand-eye coordination under pressure. It's the poor man's cricket academy.
Jinnah looked at the five men carefully.
"Show me," he said.
Ahmed tossed a small piece of wood—roughly carved to mimic a gilli. A stick served as a danda.
The first man struck too early.
The second struck cleanly. The gilli popped up and he snapped his stick through it with a sharp crack that made heads turn.
The third missed, cursed, laughed, and tried again.
The fourth hit with ugly power.
The fifth—quiet, focused—hit with control. Not wild. Accurate.
Jinnah watched that last one closely.
That one is your anchor, Bilal said. He's not showing off. He's calculating the hit.
Jinnah nodded faintly.
Selection became clear.
Fastest men: for fielding and bowling.
Two with cricket knowledge: for rules, bowling rhythm, positioning.
Five gilli danda players: for batting instincts.
Sixteen men in total—enough to form a team, and enough to form a story.
Jinnah stepped forward.
"You," he said, pointing to the scar-armed sprinter. "You will captain the running drills."
Then he pointed to the city-postured Farabi who had cricket experience.
"You will teach the rules."
Then he gestured toward the gilli danda anchor.
"And you," he said, "will learn to hold the bat like a weapon that builds, not kills."
The men stared, uncertain whether to be proud or suspicious.
Jinnah gave them no time to question it.
"Training begins tomorrow," he said.
Equipment From Lahore
The next week, a wooden crate arrived from Lahore.
It did not come with fanfare.
It came like everything else in Sandalbar: as cargo, signed for, recorded, and unpacked with discipline.
Inside the crate: bats wrapped in cloth, balls, stumps, pads, gloves. Real equipment—the kind village boys had only seen from a distance when a district officer's son played on a club lawn.
The men gathered around it like it was contraband.
A Farabi ran his thumb along the smooth face of a bat.
"This is expensive," he murmured.
Jinnah's reply was simple.
"So are guns," he said.
Bilal's internal voice carried a grin.
But this one makes loyalty without blood.
Training began immediately.
Ahmed supervised the timetable. Not because Ahmed cared about sport, but because Ahmed cared about order.
Morning: sprints and endurance.Midday: catching drills.Evening: batting practice until the light faded.
The two cricket-experienced men argued over field placements and laws. The gilli danda players learned restraint—how to hit for placement, not for ego. The fastest men learned that speed alone meant nothing if you couldn't catch.
It looked harmless.
It was not.
It was another method of control.
The Report to Harrington
Three days into training, Ahmed Khan sat at his desk at Headquarters and drafted his report to Deputy Commissioner Harrington.
He wrote it with the same tone he used for weapons inventory and village stabilization.
Because in Sandalbar, every activity was either disorder—or administration.
He sealed it and sent it through the proper channel.
Harrington received it at Montgomery district office late afternoon, among files and telegrams and complaints that never ended.
He opened Ahmed's letter expecting numbers: arrests, recovered property, remaining suspects.
Instead, his eyes paused on a sentence that didn't belong.
"Sir, I report that training is in progress at Headquarters. The men are assembled daily. The teams are being organized. There is strict attendance and supervision."
Harrington frowned.
Training?
His finger moved down the page.
"However, the instruments being used are not firearms. They are cricket bats and balls. A field has been marked. Equipment has arrived from Lahore. The exercise appears to be for discipline and coordination."
Harrington stared at the paper for a full second.
Then he let out a short laugh—half disbelief, half relief.
He leaned back in his chair and looked toward the ceiling as if searching for the line between absurdity and genius.
"No guns," he murmured to himself. "Just bats."
He tapped the letter once with his finger, then smiled faintly—because for all his imperial caution, even Harrington could recognize what this meant:
Jinnah was building men who moved together.
And he was doing it in a way the Crown could not reasonably object to.
Not yet.
Not when the yard was full of running men holding bats instead of rifles.