The IPL nets were a battlefield dressed like a practice session.
Aarav had bowled in high-stakes college matches, faced pressure, even returned from setbacks—but nothing compared to this. At the Rising Pune Supergiants camp, every ball was watched, dissected, logged. Cameras were everywhere. Coaches murmured quietly. Batsmen faced you like they'd seen it all before—because they had.
Aarav wasn't here to impress.
He was here to learn.
He reminded himself of that every time he walked to his mark, new ball in hand, heartbeat loud in his ears.
He focused on the basics. Hit the seam. Hold the line. Watch the batter. Reset. Repeat.
But deep down, he knew that wouldn't be enough—not here, where even the younger batters had played first-class cricket, where small errors were punished brutally. So he turned to what had always been his greatest strength: asking questions.
He waited for the right moments—not during matches or media days, but in the in-between. During cooldowns. After long net sessions. When senior players sat under the shade, unwinding with ice packs and casual banter.
It started with Deepak Chahar.
Aarav approached him one day with a notebook in hand. "Can I ask something?"
Chahar looked up, amused but open. "Shoot."
"I'm trying to figure out how to use variations—not just to bowl them, but… to plan them. How do you think when you're setting up a batter?"
Chahar leaned back, thoughtful. "You don't just bowl a knuckleball because it's cool," he said. "You bowl it because you've spent two balls making the batter think they've got your rhythm."
He drew an imaginary field in the dirt. "You hit a good length twice. Batter steps forward. Then you go short. Next time, you drag them in again—make them commit. That's when you drop the slower one. It's a chess match, not a power test."
Aarav wrote every word down.
Later, in a break between drills, he asked Ishant Sharma, visiting the camp in a mentoring role: "How do you know when a batter is bluffing—pretending confidence?"
Ishant gave a knowing smile. "Watch their feet. Not their face. The eyes lie. The feet panic."
And then, there was Dhoni.
He'd been a quiet presence all week. Observing more than speaking. When Aarav finally got a moment—walking beside him on the way back from nets—he didn't waste it.
"Sir," Aarav said, heart pounding. "Can I ask something about deceiving batters?"
Dhoni glanced at him, then nodded. "Sure."
"How do you read a batter—like… know what they'll try next?"
Dhoni stopped walking, wiped his hands with a towel, and answered in his usual calm.
"Most bowlers chase wickets. Good bowlers create doubt. Great ones create silence."He let that hang for a second. "Don't try to bowl the 'perfect' delivery. Try to bowl the one they weren't expecting. And keep a straight face when they miss it."
Aarav soaked it in like gospel.
He went back to the nets and started focusing on disguise, tempo changes, and most of all—reading the batter. Instead of just trying to beat them, he tried to understand them. Why did this opener keep moving across? Why was that finisher standing deeper in his crease? What did that small bat-tap mean before a slog?
He tested a new grip on the slower ball and practiced a developing knuckleball, often failing, but noting every pattern, every cue.
He didn't try to impress anyone.
And yet, slowly, coaches started taking note.
"He bowls with a brain," one murmured to another.
Aarav was still new. Still getting hit often. Still asking questions.
But now, every question brought an answer that sharpened him.
He hadn't come to be a star.
He had come to understand how stars are made.