second Innings

Meeting Rahul Dravid in 2004 was surreal. In my timeline, I'd interviewed him in 2022 for a cricket documentary, when he was head coach of the Indian team. Now, sitting across from him at a quiet café, I watched him analyze my batting technique with the same methodical precision he'd bring to transforming Indian cricket two decades later.

"Your trigger movement," he said, sketching on a napkin, "it's anticipatory but not committal. Most young players either move too early or too late. You've found a balance that shouldn't be possible without years of experience."

I sipped my chai to hide my discomfort. "I've watched a lot of cricket videos."

"Videos don't teach timing like that." He looked up, his gaze penetrating. "It's as if you know what's coming before it happens."

The irony nearly made me choke on my tea. If only he knew how right he was.

"There's something else," he continued. "Your technique â€" it's not just different, it's... evolved. Like you're playing a version of cricket that exists ten or twenty years in the future."

My hand froze around the teacup. Had I been that transparent? But Dravid was smiling, clearly meaning it as a compliment rather than an accusation.

"The game needs to evolve," he said. "Too many people are stuck in orthodox methods. But you're showing that there's another way, combining classical technique with... something new. Something that shouldn't work, but does."

As he spoke, I remembered reading about this period in his career â€" how he'd begun questioning traditional coaching methods around 2004, leading to his revolutionary approach to cricket development in the 2020s. Was I the catalyst for that change? Had I always been?

The temporal paradox made my head spin. In my timeline, Dravid's coaching philosophy had heavily influenced my own game. Now, was my future-influenced technique inspiring the very changes that would shape it? Where did the innovation truly begin?

"I have a proposal," he said, pushing aside the napkin covered in batting diagrams. "I'm working with some junior development programs. Would you be interested in conducting a few training sessions? Share your perspective?"

In my timeline, these programs had transformed Indian cricket's grassroots structure. Being involved in their inception was both thrilling and terrifying. Every drill I demonstrated, every piece of advice I gave, would ripple through time in ways I couldn't predict.

"I'd be honored," I heard myself say. "But I'm still learning too."

"That's exactly why I'm asking. You're not bound by conventional wisdom. You play like someone who's seen the future of cricket."

Walking home that evening, I pulled out my diary again:

"The paradox deepens. Every change I make seems to have been part of the original timeline all along. Am I creating a new future or fulfilling the one I left? Does the distinction even matter?

Maybe time isn't as linear as we think. Maybe it's more like a cricket pitch â€" you can play different shots, take different approaches, but the fundamental laws remain constant. The trick is knowing which laws to respect and which ones to reimagine.

Tomorrow, I start working with the junior program. Every technique I teach, every innovation I introduce, will be a pebble in the pond of time. But I'm beginning to think that's exactly why I'm here.

The future of cricket isn't a fixed destination â€" it's a constantly evolving journey. And somehow, impossibly, I get to be both student and teacher, learning from the past while guiding it toward tomorrow."

As I closed the diary, my phone lit up with another message. This time from Coach Kulkarni: "Team meeting tomorrow. Selectors want to fast-track you for state-level. Things are moving quickly."

Indeed they were. Perhaps too quickly. But like a batsman facing a fast bowler, sometimes the only way forward is to trust your instincts and play the ball as it comes.