Beginning of The End

II

The next day, when the team walked down for practice almost all of them were fifteen minutes late and Jinx had been waiting for them at the ground already. The juniors in the team looked around searchingly before their eyes landed on him and they rushed towards him.

"Where is Virat bhaiya?" Jassi was the first one to ask that and he sounded so hopeful that Jinx almost didn't tell them the truth. But he was the stand-in-captain, he couldn't let the team cling on to something that wasn't there anymore.

"He already left." He said shortly and threw the ball towards a surprised looking Jassi who almost missed the catch. "He had an early flight and didn't want to wake you all after all the partying you did last night." He told them the half truth hoping that they would let the matter go.

"He didn't even say goodbye." Kul whined, the others looking crestfallen as well and on any other occasion Jinx might have indulged them but not today.

"Yes he left without saying goodbye hoping that you guys wouldn't be disturbed. So the least all of you can do is focus on your practice right now and not let him down." He said in a stern voice, pulling his own gloves on as he avoided their eyes.

The team stood there, shocked at his tone because this was very unlike Jinx. He was not the one to snap at anyone. Maybe at Virat or Rohit when they were having a childish fight but never like this, especially not at the juniors. He was the only level headed person in the team who could actually manage to not lose his temper as everyone knew.

So everyone silently did as he said, not wanting to annoy him further and got ready for practice without questioning him. Rohit and Jaddu looked equally confused with the change in his behavior. But they thought it was the stress about having to captain the team and decided to give him some time.

And by the day of the match Jinx did seem to be in a better mood. Though they lost the second test match Jinx tried his best to keep their spirits up along with Jaddu but it didn't have the same effect as Virat's methods of encouragement did.

Especially since Rohit had got out on the duck he too seemed to be in a bad mood. The team's atmosphere did not get any better after their third match either.

Rohit once again got out with a forgettable score of 23 runs while Mayank managed to pull through a much needed 64. Rahul and Jinx had a partnership of 80 runs before the innings ended. It was only due to the excellent spinners they had that they managed to end the series in a draw.

They were sat for dinner together, the last meal they would have in Australia before leaving the next day. Jinx had gone to talk to the managers about their flight the next day when Rahul first saw the post on Instagram.

At first he did not pay much attention to it, knowing how the media kept spreading rumors about him. But soon he realized it was not just one or two fan pages who had posted the news, but almost everyone was talking about the same thing. He followed link that directed him to the official BCCI twitter handle where he saw the same article.

"Rohit." He shouted the first name that came into his mind, unable to believe his eyes as he skimmed through the article. Rohit's head snapped towards him in a confused glare which quickly morphed into concern when he saw the scarring expression on his face and hurried to his side.

"What happened? Is everything fine?" Rohit questioned him but Rahul just thrust his phone towards him and stood up hastily, walking towards the coffee table and grabbed the remote, turning the television on.

"BCCI has confirmed that their skipper Virat Kohli has announced an indefinite break from all formats of cricket. The cricketer was last seen playing against Australia where he had scored his career best 378 not out. Stay with us to know his reasons behind this sudden decision, we'll be right back."