Under the harsh glare of the halogen floodlights, the DDA Grounds buzzed with a tense, electric silence. Five hundred pairs of eyes were locked on the cracked concrete pitch.
Aryan Singhania stood at the crease, looking every bit the academy golden boy. He adjusted his expensive batting gloves, tapped his polished English willow bat against the ground, and took an elegant stance. He looked completely unbothered, exuding an air of superiority.
At the start of his run-up, Rohan Roy stood still. He wasn’t panting anymore. The exhaustion that had plagued him for the last three matches was gone, replaced by a terrifying, synthetic high.
[Adrenaline Overdrive Active. Duration: 4 Minutes, 45 Seconds.]
He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs like a war drum. The muscles in his legs twitched with pent-up energy.
Monu Bhaiya, standing at mid-off, gave Rohan a slight nod. Break his pride.
Rohan began his approach.
It wasn’t a run; it was a violent sprint. The blue turf shoes tore into the loose dirt, launching him forward. With the Adrenaline Overdrive coursing through his veins, his body moved faster than it ever had in his entire life.
Aryan’s arrogant smirk faltered slightly as he watched Rohan charge in. The scrawny kid who couldn’t even reach 105 km/h at school practice was hurtling towards the crease like a runaway freight train.
Rohan leaped. He threw his non-bowling arm down with brutal force, braced his core so hard he felt his abs cramp, and snapped his right shoulder over.
WHOOSH.
The heavy tape-ball left his hand as a dark, unreadable blur. It pitched short of a length on the uneven concrete.
Aryan immediately rocked onto his back foot, preparing to execute a textbook pull shot. He had practiced this exact shot a thousand times on the pristine turf wickets of his elite academy. He expected the ball to bounce neatly to his waist.
But this wasn’t turf. This was concrete. And the ball was wrapped in double-layered industrial tape.
Instead of bouncing up, the ball hit a crack and skidded horizontally, keeping dangerously low and accelerating off the pitch.
ZIPP.
The ball flashed past the bottom edge of Aryan’s wildly swinging bat. It completely bypassed the stumps and thudded directly into the fleshy, unprotected part of Aryan’s left thigh.
THWACK.
Aryan let out a sharp, choked gasp, dropping his bat instantly. He stumbled backward, clutching his leg, his face turning pale under the halogen lights. The impact of a heavy tape-ball at that speed on bare muscle was excruciating.
"Ooh!" The crowd let out a collective wince.
Behind the stumps, Kabir didn’t even try to collect the ball. He just stared at Rohan, terrified.
Rohan stood in the middle of the pitch, his chest heaving, his eyes locked onto Aryan. A glowing screen flashed in his vision.
[Delivery Analyzed.]
[Pace: 121.4 km/h]
[Status: Extreme Kinetic Impact.]
He had broken the 120 barrier.
"What’s wrong, Captain?" Rohan yelled, his voice echoing across the silent ground. "I thought you were going to hit me for six sixes?"
Aryan gritted his teeth, his face flushing crimson with humiliation and rage. He picked up his bat, violently waving away his non-striker who had run up to check on him.
"I slipped," Aryan spat, limping slightly as he took his stance again. "You got lucky, Roy. Pitch it up if you have the guts."
Rohan walked back to his mark, the synthetic adrenaline burning hotter in his veins.
Over 1, Ball 2.
He sprinted in again, the turf shoes gripping flawlessly. This time, he didn’t pitch it short. He went for the absolute kill.
He aimed for the base of the middle stump. A yorker.
The ball left his hand, hurtling towards Aryan’s toes like a heat-seeking missile.
Aryan saw it coming. Desperate to save face, he threw his bat down in a frantic attempt to dig out the yorker. But his footwork, usually so elegant, was sluggish because of the throbbing pain in his left thigh.
He was a fraction of a second too late.
The heavy tape-ball sneaked under the toe of his bat and slammed violently into the base of the middle stump.
CRACK!
The sound echoed like a gunshot. The stump didn’t just fall; it splintered near the base, leaning backward at a chaotic angle.
Aryan froze, his bat still jammed into the concrete, staring blankly at the broken wood behind him. The golden boy of St. Peter’s, the academy prodigy, had been utterly destroyed in two deliveries by the school’s bench-warmer.
The crowd exploded into absolute pandemonium.
"Cleaned him up!"
"Yorker of the century!"
"Who is this kid?!"
Monu Bhaiya sprinted from mid-off, letting out a primal roar, and tackled Rohan, nearly bringing him to the ground. Kabir came running from behind the stumps, screaming his lungs out.
"You did it! You actually did it!" Kabir yelled, shaking Rohan violently.
Aryan didn’t look at Rohan. He didn’t look at the crowd. He slowly picked up his bat, his face a mask of absolute, burning humiliation, and began the long, agonizing walk back to his team’s tent under the floodlights.
[Delivery Analyzed.]
[Pace: 122.1 km/h]
[Result: Clean Bowled. Target Terminated.]
Rohan breathed heavily, the adrenaline still coursing through him. He looked at Monu Bhaiya, a feral grin on his face.
"Four balls left in the over, Monu Bhaiya," Rohan gasped. "Let’s finish them."
The rest of the over was a massacre.
The Royal Strikers’ number three and four batsmen were terrified. They had just watched their academy-trained captain get dismantled. They couldn’t track Rohan’s pace under the halogen lights.
Ball 3: A sharp outswinger that took the outside edge and flew into Kabir’s gloves.
Ball 4: A terrifying bouncer that forced the new batsman to duck, losing his balance and falling onto his backside.
Ball 5: Another yorker, shattering the off-stump.
Ball 6: A wide yorker that the batsman couldn’t even touch.
Rohan finished his first over. One run (a wide), and three wickets. He had essentially ended the match before it even began.
[Adrenaline Overdrive: Deactivating...]
The moment the system notification popped up, the synthetic high vanished.
It was like running full speed into a brick wall. The pain didn’t return slowly; it crashed into him all at once. Every muscle fiber in his right arm screamed in agony. His legs turned to jelly, and his lungs burned as if he had inhaled acid.
He stumbled, falling to one knee on the dusty pitch.
"Rohan!" Monu Bhaiya was there in a second, catching him by the shoulder. "Kid, look at me. Are you alright?"
"I’m... done," Rohan wheezed, his vision blurring at the edges. "Can’t... bowl anymore."
"You don’t need to," Monu smiled softly, his eyes filled with immense pride. "You broke their spine. We’ll handle the rest. Go rest."
Monu and Kabir helped Rohan hobble off the field to their tent. He collapsed onto a plastic chair, burying his face in his hands, gasping for air.
Without Aryan and their top order, the Royal Strikers crumbled. Monu brought himself on to bowl, using his intimidating presence and deceptive slower balls to restrict them to a pitiful 38 runs in their 8 overs.
When it was time to chase, Monu didn’t even bother taking his time. He walked out and smashed five huge sixes in two overs, finishing the game with a monstrous strike over long-on.
The Colony Kings had won the Sunday Gully Premier League.
The crowd rushed the field, lifting Monu onto their shoulders, but Rohan stayed in his chair, physically incapable of moving.
He watched the celebration through half-closed eyes. He saw the organizers hand Monu a thick envelope of cash. He saw Aryan and his team quietly slinking away into the night, their pride completely shattered.
Amidst the chaos and the blaring Punjabi music, a beautiful, golden chime rang inside Rohan’s skull.
[Ding!]
[Active Quest: The Underworld of Gully Cricket - COMPLETED!]
[Objectives Completed: 3/3]
[Evaluating Overall Performance: S-Rank (Flawless Dominance)]
[Distributing Rewards...]
[+20 System Points (SP)]
[Skill Unlocked: Beginner’s Bowling Action Blueprint]
[+1 Pace Stat (Base Pace increased to 105 km/h)]
[Bonus Reward for S-Rank: 1x Elite Nutrition Pack, +2 Physique Stat]
Rohan smiled weakly. The pain in his body was excruciating, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed for the next two days, just as the System had warned.
But as he looked at the massive influx of rewards on his glowing blue screen, he knew it was worth every drop of sweat.
He was a trash-tier bench-warmer no more. He had 28 SP. He had a blueprint to fix his action. He had raw pace.
"Hey, sleeping beauty," Monu Bhaiya interrupted his thoughts, dropping a crisp wad of ₹500 ($ 5.21) notes into Rohan’s lap. "Your cut. ₹2,000 ($ 20.84). Not bad for a waterboy, eh?"
Rohan looked at the money, then up at Monu, a genuine, exhausted smile breaking across his face.
"Not bad at all, Monu Bhaiya. Not bad at all."