❝ 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔'𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒅 - 𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒍 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒂 𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒈𝒍𝒚. ❞
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Sometimes love doesn't knock on the right door. Sometimes it slips in through a misdial, a l...
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Author's POV-
By the time the third over arrived, the scoreboard read 15/0. Nothing too dramatic. Nothing too threatening either. But the kind of silence that hovered? It wasn't empty. It throbbed. Almost like the entire stadium was breathing shallow. Not just because of the runs. But the rhythm—or rather, the lack of it.
Every dot ball was a pebble dropped in still water, rippling through both teams. The fielders shuffled. The captain gave a clap or two. The wicketkeeper chirped half-hearted encouragement that even he didn't believe. The crowd grew restless—some leaning forward, some adjusting their caps, many simply waiting for a moment.
And then... it came.
The last ball of the over. Not just a delivery. A decision.
The bowler started his run-up with a focus that didn't blink. He was one of those who didn't just bowl with their arms—they bowled with their eyes, with their breath, with their bones. The kind that didn't just want a dot ball. He wanted a mistake. And if the batter even slightly faltered, he'd be there—hungry to devour it.
And so he let it go. A seaming length delivery—good height, hard seam, and wicked precision. It pitched right in the corridor of uncertainty. Not wide enough to leave. Not tight enough to defend comfortably. That perfect in-between that messes with muscle memory and confidence alike.
The batsman flinched—just a beat. He wasn't out of form. But this ball? It wasn't asking. It was demanding. He committed. Too late. Too loose. A horizontal bat swatted at it like a fly in panic.
Click.
Not clean. Not full. A half-hearted edge—off the higher part of the bat. And then... air.
The ball ballooned upwards, slicing against the breeze. Hung there. Awkward. Mocking.
Everything else—paused.
The stadium didn't grow silent. It held its breath.
Even time, for once, had the decency to freeze.
The ball arced toward slip—way out wide. Arjun sprinted. A dozen strides, out like quicksilver. He felt turf snap beneath his spikes. And then:
DIVE.
Time fractured.
One heartbeat. One breath. And in between the tick of that second and the next, the world turned silent. The crowd? Gone. The chants? Muted. Even the loudspeaker's static hum seemed to hush like it, too, was holding its breath.
Arjun stretched—body horizontal, arms out like a swimmer reaching for the wall. Air sliced past his ears. His jersey, fluttered against his back like it was desperate to keep up. For a moment, he wasn't a cricketer. He was a comet—a streak of white and willpower cutting through gravity's lazy arc.
