Climb Every Mountain, With You (Shubman Gill x Ishan Kishan)

All falls down

When they landed in Australia, the Indian and Australian Cricket Boards together threw an appreciation party for KL Rahul and Pat Cummins, both of who were about to play their last series as captain.

"A round of applause for the Indian and Australians captains for the great heights they have helped their respective countries achieve!" the anchor of the show said. "And here's to them passing over the baton to Shubman Gill and Cameron Green, their future."

Shubman and Green were ushered onto the stage to a standing ovation. Shubman had received wild applauses countless times before, this was nothing new. He did not get overwhelmed by it anymore. Till the anchor continued....

"And for their deputies, Rishabh Pant in Tests and Ishan Kishan in limited overs for Mr. Gill and Will Pucovski in all formats for Mr. Green."

After that, all Shubman remembered was being overwhelmed.

Why had the BCCI kept this a secret till they could unleash it when Shubman was on stage?

Ishan and Rishabh both seemed overwhelmed as they walked to the stage too. Rahul bhai grinned at them in a way that made it clear he had known. Well, of course he had known.

"A warning next time, Rahul bhai!" Shubman whispered to him.

"I wouldn't miss seeing your faces for anything," said Rahul bhai.

After that, there was much congratulations and long speeches by several top post holders of the BCCI and the CA. Several strangers came and told Shubman they had known from the day they saw him bat in his Under 19 days that this day would come someday, which Shubman thought was very over-the-top.

When he told his teammates so, they gave him strange looks.

"Sorry, but Shubi, you actually did make it very clear where your future is heading in your Under 19 days," said Rishabh.

"But how can anyone know about being national captain?" said Shubman.

"I knew," said Ishan with a wink. "Though I can't say I was very fond of the rising star."

At the first opportunity Shubman got when no one was directly addressing him or Ishan, he yanked Ishan into a corner and kissed him.

"My vice captain," he said, winking.

Ishan was too flustered at the suddenness to start kissing Shubman back properly till he kissed him again.

"You were supposed to say my captain," said Shubman when they pulled away to breathe.

"God, that's weird, that's-"

Shubman was good at cutting Ishan's protests with his brain-stopping kisses. He was also good at, well, stopping Ishan's brain.

"All right," he gasped, curling his fingers into Shubman's hair. "My captain..."

Shubman's eyes had gone a familiar dark. Ishan suddenly realized that they were not nearly well-hidden enough. "Okay, Shubi, this is dangerous-"

"Can't help it," said Shubman. "You know, now I think I've always had a thing for this captain-vice captain...thing."

"Yes, but since we have to keep up the secrecy thing...." Ishan pulled away from Shubman's arms with difficulty, but kept their hands joined. "Come on."

"Where?" asked Shubman. "You're taking us towards the limelight."

"One of us has to be sensible! There are cameras everywhere!"

"Cameras? You're scared of cameras?"

Unfortunately neither Shubman nor Ishan had been sufficiently scared of cameras.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the morning of the first Test of the series, Ruturaj, who read online newspapers meticulously every morning over breakfast, murmured, "Oh, God. Oh, my God."

"What?" asked Rishabh. "Distressing news about the Maharashtra elections?"

"It's-um-" Rutu put his phone away. "Um, nothing."

Of course, if he had just said 'yes' no one would have given it a second thought. But now, everyone wanted to know.

"What exactly is it, Rutu?" Jassi bhai asked.

"Nothing. I said it's nothing," Rutu sounded agitated. "Will you all stop looking at me?"

Rishabh and Shubman exchanged a look and both dived for Rutu's phone.

"Don't!" Rutu shrieked.

Rishabh got to it first, took a look at it, and went in the same tone as Rutu, "Oh my God."

"What is it?" demanded everyone.

Shubman leaned over Rishabh's shoulder.

"Don't let him get to it!" shouted Rutu.

And Rishabh tried to swing the phone away from Shubman.

Then Shubman had had enough. His competitive spirit jumped to the fore and he practically upset the whole table including three jugs of juice to snatch the goddamned phone and see what the big mystery was.

Then he realized he would have been better off not seeing. Not on the morning of the Test series. Possibly not ever.

The article was captioned 'Newly appointed Team India captain caught in scandal.' He didn't need to read the rest of it to know what the scandal was.

The accompanying picture was good enough.

Why had they never realized the lethal power of cameras?