The Broken Bonds

Ch-1 They still believe

3 years later. 2022 (just for the plot of the story assume covid didn't happen)

The match was going on of India and Australia and it was a crucial moment. India needed 20 runs in the last over and on the crease were two of the best all rounders of India, Ravindra Jadeja and hardik Pandya so obviously the pressure was on the bowler. Jadeja was on strike. And first ball went for a dot.
And the bowler started to feel a little confident but it was his mistake because the second ball went for a four and the next again went for a four. Now they needed twelve from 3balls. The next ball they took one run. Now only two were remaining and 11 runs were needed, everyone were on the edge of their seats. But the two batsmen were totally chilled.

"Harry show him who the boss is" jaddu said grinning and referring to the bowler who just some time before had sledged Harry.
"I will" hardik said and smirked.
And the next two balls went for two sixes and india won the match.
Everyone ran in the ground to hug these two as they had just won the t20 series by 5-0.

Indian team was on a roll.
They were playing good both away and home series and everyone in the squad were in great form.
From openers to middle order to bowlers everyone were doing thier job perfectly.
And so as the captain of one of the most powerful Indian team, virat should be super happy right? But for some reason that was not the case. It hadn't been from the last three years. Win after win but virat's mood wasn't very good, ever. He knew the reason of course but he ignored it.
He ignored his heart and told himself that there was nothing missing and he had a perfect family but that also didn't help much due to Harry and Rishu and jaddu's behaviour towards him. The only three people who still believed in "HIM".
They didn't behave too good with virat or Rohit also. But at least they behaved properly with the rest.

And so when he went to hug jaddu and Harry, as expected, they just briefly hugged him and ro and gave a formal smile.

Ro looked at virat helplessly knowing that they can't do anything since this was something that was going on from three years.

The man of the match went to hardik while player of the tournament went to virat.

After the post match presentation was over and the team was sitting in bus hardik couldn't control his excitement as he told jaddu who was sitting beside him "I hope mahi bhai calls early today."

"I do too" jaddu whispered.
"He will be so amazed by our performance"
And they grinned at each other.

Bhuvi who was passing by saw them grinning like maniacs and asked "I hope it's no new prank you two are thinking about?"

"Of course not" jaddu answered"we were just...." As he was about to give some reason jassi who was also coming interrupted "remembering your performance? I mean it was so amazing. And harry that last two ball sixes totally reminded me of mahi...." And jassi abruptly stopped realising what he was saying.

They weren't supposed to talk about him anymore. He had fixed the match, the very important match and betrayed the country, at least that's what the proofs showed.

"You were going to say Mahi bhai right?" Harry said smiling more if that was possible "thanxx Jass that was the best compliment i got today."

Hardik, jaddu and rishabh were the only ones who still talked about mahi bhai freely in front of the team as they still supported mahi bhai. And they never listened to virat's warnings about not speaking about him. Because they also knew that virat couldn't really remove them from the team if their performance was good.

And sometimes everyone admired the loyalty these three seemed to have to him but virat had termed it as blind faith which he had told would be cleared sooner or later.

"Now that we are cleared that you two were not planning any prank at least I can sit peacefully" Bhuvi said breaking the awkward silence and going towards his seat.

"I am also going" jassi said and went to his seat.
"What's wrong with them?" Harry said. "I can't believe they still believe that mahi bhai could do something like that."

"I know" jaddu said "but we can't do anything, we have been trying from three years."
"Yeah" harry agreed.

"Vi see this" ro said in an excited voice and sat in the empty seat beside virat showing his phone.

Virat looked at his phone. They were showing the most successful international captains in away and home series across all formats and virat's name was now second.
"Isn't this cool? It will just take four away wins to come at the top " Ro said.
"It feels nice" virat said smiling, because honestly he couldn't ever lie to ro and it really felt nice.

"It should too" ro said.
"Aye, I also have a stat" vi said taking ro's mobile and searching top cricket openers, there he found a site which he had seen just some time before.
He showed it to ro.
Ro's name was second in higest run makers in openers.
"You are now only 150 runs behind getting the first position, what say a double century next odi?" Vi asked.

Ro grinned at him. "that sounds good to me" he said.