Beginning of The End

XIV

It had been a tiresome affair, the past few hours.

The team had been sitting in the dugout, heads in their hands as they watched the wickets falling like dominos.

If only one of them could hold on from there then maybe Virat could do something, all of them thought desperately as they watched Virat standing at the non-striker's end impatiently.

One minute they were sure the match had slipped right through their fingers and the next minute, Virat was smashing the Australian bowlers.

They were all staring in disbelief, unable to believe that he had just managed to get them the seemingly impossible victory. But that was exactly what he had done.

It took them all a few seconds to register that last six, none of them dared to move from their seats. But then the crowd erupted into cheers and they saw the tricolored flags being waved around and the team jumped with the crowd, finally registering the victory and pumping their fists in the air.

They didn't even realize that Jinks had been missing until they saw him kneeling on the ground beside Virat with the doctor hovering over them.

After that, neither of them could make sense out of anything happening there. One minute they were celebrating their victory and the next minute Jinks was carrying Virat off the field. They were about to follow them out of the ground when the team manager stopped them.

"Rohit you need to finish the presentation first." He said in a no-nonsense tone and Rohit looked baffled at the suggestion. "But Virat bhai just fainted." Yuzi spluttered out in disbelief.

The manager just shrugged uneasily, "You guys can go with them if you want but Rohit will have to stay back. Ajinkya's already left with the doctors, at least the captain will have to remain."

Suddenly the atmosphere became stifling, the boys could see that Manish, Siraj, and Dev had already left with Jinks. They wanted to go along, but one look at Rohit's distressed face and they didn't have the heart to leave him behind. 

After everything that they had seen, they should not have been shocked but seeing Manish having an animated conversation with their physio when they walked towards the physio's room later made them stop in their tracks.

Siraj and Jinks were nowhere to be seen while Dev was looking at Manish with an almost scared expression on his face.

"-just take five minutes. You know how this could be." Manish was telling him, eyebrows furrowed together and lips pursed into a thin line. But the doctor still looked unconvinced by whatever he said and shook his head.

"I can't let someone see him like this, it's against the rules." Manish looked like he was about to protest and Rohit quickly stepped forward.

"Is everything fine? Where's Virat?" He asked the doctor and Jinks let out a short breath, rubbing his forehead tiredly. The doctor looked towards him with a relieved look, silently thanking him for stopping Manish.

"He's inside, doesn't seem to have any injuries so that's a good sign. But we'll have to conduct a few tests to know what made him pass out like that. After that, he's all yours." The doctor said with a reassuring smile but Manish shook his head in exasperation.

"Why won't you just-"

"You said it's against the rules right?" Jinks asked, rushing towards them with his phone clutched in his hands. The doctor nodded his head again and Manish handed him the phone. "Well after this there shouldn't be any issues then."

The team looked at each other with puzzled expressions, but Jinks and Manish stood in front of the doctor with their arms folded across their chests. A few minutes passed by, the doctor nodded along whoever was on the other end of the phone.