Whom Will He Choose?

Ch-5 The request

"You only have two options, ro." Mahi bhai said to rohit on the call.
"Which are...." Ro said in curioisty.
"Either you apologize saying the tweet was a mistake or something or...." Ro didn't let mahi bhai finish and instantly said "no, no, no. I won't."
"I know you would say no, so at least listen to me." Mahi said loudly to get ro's attention "the second option is don't do anything, just go and win matches. And for now don't tweet or post anything on social media regarding this."
"Yeah the second option is better. I will do that." Ro said.
"And next time please be careful before doing anything on social media."
"Aye, aye, captain." Ro said grinning which made mahi laugh.
"And all the best for the next series. I am sure you all will win."
"Thanks bhai." Ro said smiling.

The five days soon got over and the team met at the mumbai airport as they had to leave for south Africa. They had three odis and then tests matches.

Once the team members started to arrive they went in the waiting room.

"I can't believe you actually tweeted like that, rohit bhaiya." Yuzi told ro, who had just come.

"Yeah, that was so savage of you." Kul said as he went to hug him.
"It was like the awesome-est thing ever." Harry, who had also entered with ro, said happily.

"Three of you, stop encouraging him, it was a very bad decision." Bhuvi said.

"But wouldn't you agree that they deserved it?" Yuzi asked.

"Yes, they did, they deserve much worse, but this is not right method, you can't show the whole world that you have problems with the board."

"When they can call virat bhaiya a liar in front of the whole world,  why can't we also point out their mistakes in front of the whole world?" Kul asked.

"Because we shouldn't stoop to their level." Virat said coming towards the group. He had heard kul's question and he instantly knew what the conversation would be about.

"This is not the time to blame each other." He continued. "We can't show the world that we are disunited. Or else the other cricketing nations will try to take advantage of that. And we don't need to give content to the media and everyone outside, waiting for this type of drama. Also we need to maintain higher standards than the bcci members, if they do something bad that doesn't mean we should also retaliate, okay?"

Everyone nodded.
Bhuvi looked at virat and smiled a little. It was funny how vi always acted immaturely, but in serious times, he was always the most mature person.

"Actually he's right." Ro said. "The tweet wasn't the right thing. I was just so angry at them, i didn't even think what I was doing. But now we all will have to be careful. They will try to ask us about my tweet, or the whole argument with bcci and everything. No one should answer or react on anything like that."
Everyone nodded in agreement.

Then to change the topic, virat started to ask everyone how they had spent their free time and they started to enjoy.

Jinks had come late, and he went straight to rohit who was talking on the phone with ritika.
As soon as he cut the phone, jinks said "ro, seriously?"
"Jinks i have already been scolded by mahi bhai and vi, and i have realized my mistake." Ro said immediately knowing what jinks was going to say.

"Doubt they would have scolded you properly." Jinks muttered knowing that mahi bhai doesn't scold them much for anything they do off field. He just explains them properly and if ever virat scolds someone, it's always half hearted.

"Well....uhh...." Rohit was lost for words knowing that he really wasn't scolded by any of them. "But the point is, I realized my mistake and i regret it." He said, finally.

Jinks stared at him for a moment and asked "do you really?"

Ro thought about lying to jinks but then decided against it. It worked in front of juniors but he doubted it would work against jinks.
"Not really." He answered, grinning.

"And i am not at all surprised." Jinks said shaking his head.
"Just be careful next time, for God's sake."

Ro just nodded and they went where others were sitting.

                     ********

The team soon reached south Africa. Everyone had to share a room, so, ro and vi decided to stay in one room. That evening, vi was teaching rohit how to play video games, when they heard a knock on the door.

"It's open." Vi shouted, thinking it was one of the juniors, but got surprised to see rahul bhai instead.

"What are you both doing?" He asked as he came inside.
"I am teaching him video games, because he's really bad at it." Vi said, grinning.
Ro punched vi on his arm playfully and said "but unfortunately, he's such a bad teacher that I don't think i will ever learn with him."

Now it was vi's turn to punch him on his arm and like that they both started hitting each other playfully.

Rahul bhai looked at them and realized it was going to be hard to talk to them. He has observed them from the day he has joined the team and he wasn't really that surprised that rohit would tweet something like that for virat.
He knew every member in the team would do anything for the other and as far as rohit and virat were concerned, they would even give their lives for each other.

He took a deep breath, relaxed himself, and said, "I want to talk to you both."

Ro and vi, who had completely forgotten that rahul bhai was there, stopped hitting each other at once.
"Yes, bhai tell us, is everything alright? You look worried." Vi said.
Rahul bhai hesitated, but then said, "Ro, I know you won't like this, but i think you should say sorry to the bcci members."

Ro stared at him. "What?" He asked.
"You heard me, I think you should say sorry." He repeated.

Rohit shook his head. "It's not gonna happen. Why should I say sorry when I am not feeling sorry at all?" He asked.

"Ro, listen, already the media is making different different stories and it is unwise to expose all the problems between the board and players."

"They started everything." Ro said a little angrily. "First they removed virat from the captaincy of odi without even informing him and then they lied that virat was requested to keep the captaincy of T20 and when virat denied it, THEY HAD THE AUDACITY YO CALL HIM A LIAR?" Ro shouted the last line and Virat quickly rubbed ro's back to calm him down.

Ro tried to calm down a little, and said in a normal voice "They can do anything, it's okay, but i just tweet a small little thing, based on truth, and suddenly they can't handle it. Dada told you to talk with us and ask me to say sorry, didn't he?"

Rahul Bhai's silence was as good as an answer for Ro.

"I have no problem in saying sorry." Ro continued after a minute. "I will even write a 1000 words apology letter and even put it on Twitter and every other social media app i have. And if they tell me, i will even leave the captaincy, but I just want them to accept their fault in communicating poorly with vi about odi captaincy and apologizing for calling him a liar. I don't care whether they apologize by tweeting or calling a conference or whatever, but i want an apology from them for vi. If they do this, then i will do whatever they want, i will even take retirement from cricket if that's what they want."

"Are you out of your mind?" Virat asked him. "There is no need of an apology, if it results in your retirement or you leaving captaincy."

"Well don't worry, i am pretty sure their egos won't allow them to accept that they are at fault." Ro said.

Rahul bhai knew it was no benefit in trying to talk to ro as he was pretty determined. And he knew that Ro was actually right. No one from bcci was actually going to apologize even though they might be wrong.

And this was only going to result in one thing- more fights between board and the players, especially rohit and virat.

(A/n: so some players such as rohit and Kuldeep weren't there for the sa series when virat resigned from test captaincy, but for the plot, i have decided to show that they were present. Also test matches happened first and then odis, but in this book, odis are first and then test matches.)