Jinnah's first mistake was assuming that men who had survived forests, raids, and hunger would automatically understand practice.
They did not.
They understood danger. They understood orders. They understood night movement and silence and sudden force.
But cricket, in its early days, looked to them like a toy that demanded sweat.
The training yard at Headquarters had shape now: a marked pitch, stumps planted, a rough boundary line in chalk and ash. The crate from Lahore had become a small shrine of equipment—bats wrapped in cloth, balls kept like valuables, pads hung carefully so they wouldn't crack.
And yet, the men trained with the half-heartedness of soldiers ordered to dance.
They ran, but lazily. They bowled, but without intent. They batted as if the bat were a stick used to pass time, not a tool meant to build an edge.
Jinnah noticed it the way he noticed flaws in a witness statement—quietly, immediately, with growing certainty.
They don't understand what this is for, Bilal said inside his mind. They think you're amusing yourself.
Jinnah watched a man roll the ball instead of driving it.
"Then they require education," Jinnah replied.
Bilal's voice sharpened. And you require bowlers.
Jinnah's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Fast bowlers, Bilal said. Not hobby throwers. In cricket, pace is authority. Pace forces respect. You need men whose bodies look like punishment before they even release the ball.
Jinnah scanned the group again.
Bilal continued, almost methodical. Choose the tall ones. The broad shoulders. The ones whose muscles are built for impact and repeat effort. Shoulder strength. Back strength. Long arms. The ball should arrive like a message.
Jinnah walked the line of players slowly, like an inspector. He did not ask opinions. He observed.
He chose four men.
All of them tall. All of them thick through the shoulders. One Farabi who looked carved out of wood. Two from Madho's settled men who carried strength like habit. One quiet man with a bull-neck and wrists like rope.
Ahmed Khan raised his eyebrow. "Sir, these four?"
Jinnah nodded once. "These four."
Ahmed hesitated. "They are not the fastest."
Jinnah's reply was calm. "They are not meant to chase. They are meant to deliver."
Bilal's voice had a faint satisfaction to it. Now you're thinking like a captain.
The Coach From Lahore Gymkhana
Two days later, a man arrived from Lahore Gymkhana.
Not a soldier. Not a clerk. A coach.
His name was Mr. Pembroke—a British-Indian mix of confidence and habit, dressed as if the field were a club lawn even when it was only dusty ground behind the Headquarters sheds.
He looked over the makeshift pitch and tried to hide his disappointment.
"This is… rustic," he said.
Evelyn, passing nearby, gave him one glance that could cauterize arrogance.
"It is functional," she said, and walked on.
Pembroke cleared his throat, adjusted his cap, and began his work.
He treated the four tall men like raw material.
Foot placement. Arm rotation. Release height. Wrist snap. Follow-through. Rhythm. Breathing.
He made them bowl until sweat ran into their eyes and their shoulders trembled. When one man complained, Pembroke didn't argue—he simply made him bowl again.
The other players watched with mild amusement at first.
Then with respect.
Then with a kind of quiet fear.
Because the ball, when released correctly, stopped looking like play.
It started looking like power.
Even so, the overall training remained uneven. The men were improving, but their hearts were not in it. They still treated it like a side assignment—a strange phase Jinnah would abandon when real work returned.
Jinnah understood something then:
They did not need drills.
They needed a reason.
The Study Meeting
That evening, Jinnah ordered a meeting—players only.
No villagers. No staff. No spectators. No women. No Farabi audience.
Only the selected team.
They entered his study at the Lodge sanctuary with a stiffness that was almost comical. These were men who had stood before bandits without blinking, but they entered a room of books as if it were a court.
The study smelled of leather bindings and ink. Shelves climbed the walls. A heavy desk sat under a lamp. There was a silence in the room that made even strong men lower their voices.
Jinnah waited until all were seated.
Then he spoke without raising his tone.
"You do not take this training seriously," he said.
The men exchanged looks. Some lowered their eyes. One Farabi shifted as if ready to defend himself.
Jinnah lifted a hand slightly.
"I did not call you here to scold you," he said. "I called you here to teach you."
He stood, walked to one of the shelves, and pulled out a book—then another. Thick volumes. Serious titles. The kind of books that did not belong in villages.
He placed them on the desk with controlled weight.
"You see these books," he said. "Do you know why the British fear me more than many men with guns?"
The room went still.
The tallest of Madho's men frowned. "Because you have power, Sir."
Jinnah's eyes sharpened.
"No," he said. "Power is temporary. Fear is specific. They fear me because I fight them with something they cannot strike."
He tapped the books once.
"The law," he said. "Their law."
He leaned slightly forward.
"They made it. They wrote it. They print it. They hide behind it."
A pause.
"And I know it better than them."
The men watched him as if hearing a new kind of weapon described.
Jinnah's voice stayed calm, but it carried the cold confidence that had made assembly rooms go quiet.
"When I move in law, they cannot arrest my argument," he said. "They cannot beat it with sticks. They cannot silence it with rifles. They can only answer it—inside the same rules."
He let that settle.
Then he shifted the subject without warning.
"Cricket," he said, "is the same."
The men blinked.
Jinnah continued.
"If you fight them with guns," he said, "they will call you criminals. They will hang you, and they will sleep soundly."
He paused, then spoke carefully—deliberately choosing words that would land without turning into foolish bravado.
"But if you defeat them inside their own game," he said, "they will call you talented."
He looked around the room.
"If you bowl with aggression on the pitch," he said, "they will not call it rebellion. They will call it fast bowling."
He allowed a thin, controlled smile.
"And sometimes," he added, "they will even admire you for it."
The men's faces shifted. Not all at once—but the point began to enter.
Bilal's voice murmured inside Jinnah's mind, satisfied: Now they understand. You've translated it into their language: safety through rules.
Jinnah's eyes moved from face to face.
"This game is not a joke," he said. "It is discipline disguised as leisure. It is violence turned into rules. It is rivalry turned into respect. It is a battlefield where the Empire cannot punish you for winning."
He placed his hand flat on the desk.
"If you want to rise," he said, "rise where they cannot drag you down."
Silence held.
Then one Farabi, the quiet anchor from the gilli danda group, spoke hesitantly.
"Sir… you mean we can hurt their pride without giving them a reason to hurt us."
Jinnah nodded once. "Precisely."
Another man, younger, asked quietly, "And if we become good… what then?"
Jinnah's voice remained even.
"Then you become visible," he said. "And a visible man, if disciplined, becomes difficult to ignore."
He picked up his pen again, signaling the meeting was ending.
"Training continues," he said. "With seriousness. Not because I want entertainment."
He looked at them.
"Because I want men who can win without becoming criminals."
They rose as one, and something had changed in the way they stood.
Not excitement.
Purpose.
The Talk Among Themselves
Later that night, away from the books, away from the study, the men gathered near the quarters where they slept. The winter air was sharp. Their breath formed clouds as they spoke in low voices.
The scar-armed sprinter said, "He is right. Guns make you a target."
A Farabi corporal frowned. "But this is just a game."
The tall bowler—the bull-necked one—shook his head slowly.
"No," he said. "It is a door."
The gilli danda anchor, still quiet, said, "He fights them with law. We fight them with their sport."
Another man laughed softly. "Imagine an English officer angry because he is losing, and he still has to clap."
The corporal's mouth twitched. "If we beat them, they'll call us 'naturals.'"
"And if we beat them again," the sprinter added, "they'll call us 'dangerous.'"
The tall bowler looked toward the dark lake, thinking.
"Dangerous," he said, "but not arrestable."
They fell silent for a moment, each man hearing the same lesson in his own language.
Then the sprinter spoke again, voice lower now—serious.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we train properly."
No cheering. No slogans.
Just agreement.
Because in Sandalbar, even a game was not truly a game.
It was another system.
And systems, once understood, could be used to climb without being crushed.