Crickomania 2037

Mehedi woke up in a cold sweat. Was he ready? Could he possibly be the man to outdo Rohit Kohli, that too in his first match? Would anyone buy that? Seriously, he thought, it was asking too much... he wouldn't have believed it.

Anxiety batting away whatever sleep, was left as the dawn seeped through to his bedroom, Mehedi abandoned hopes of further slumber and got up to get ready for what was set to be the most important day of his life. BPEL Crickomania 2037. It doesn't get much bigger.

It was past 2 pm by the time he made it to the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium. His father had told him a few years ago that they used to play in the daytime. Entrances must have sucked back in the day, Mehedi had thought.

“Go straight to the staging area. They've been waiting for you,” barked Anamul, Abahani's director, the moment Mehedi entered the dressing room.

“No Mehedi; you are to be known as Medieval Hasan,” Kiran Modi, the emcee extraordinaire, said as he put a hurried yet reassuring arm around the youngster's shoulders when he got to the staging area. “You should relax. No use being antsy; that's not the personality you are going for. You're in the club just to party. Ultra cool, but capable of combustion at a moment's notice. That's what will make it special; they won't see it coming.”

“Ermm... does Mr Rohit know what will happen?”

“You don't worry about that; Rohit is a finely honed professional. Now you have to remember to take the microphone from the umpire before anything happens. What we are going for here is a star on debut. We've never done that...  no pressure, but you only get to do this once,” Modi looked at the near-trembling Mehedi and changed tack. “But don't worry, the way we've got it laid out, it shouldn't be a problem. Just follow the script and let the adrenaline do the rest. Now here's your jersey, put this [hands Mehedi a pill] under your wristband and just pop it when your music hits...”

“Speaking of,” Modi turned around and walked to a console of touch screens and tapped a few, “you'll be walking out to this.”

Some retro music with synth and a girl's voice rapping out the precise amount she does not care started blaring. “That's a classic... it's called Bodak Yellow by Cardi B. We're trying to make you a classic too, trying to make some green.”

Mehedi went off with his jersey and the pill and when he re-entered the dressing room, things were heating up. Yasir was in one corner with the fielding coach yelling “Drop!” now and “Catch!” the next. Karunasinghe was padded up and practising his LBW.

“You won't need much practice today, Medieval,” Anamul flashed a smile as he was showing another rookie, Luke, how to push the palms out at the last second to fake the drop. “Medi's gonna score the winning runs today.”

“But my name is not on the team sheet.”

“You really are new, aren't you?” Anamul laughed. “You'll be the interference, man! By the time the night's through, you'll be a household name. Which reminds me, go to the makeup room for a touch-up. They haven't installed the new lights yet, these ones will make you look all washed out on video.

“Okay, I'll be off now to finalise the script with Mohammedan. Remember: your entrance is at the start of the last over—that's the fifth over. You get in Rohit's face—remember the microphone—tell him that his celebrity power-couple parents took you in after his falling out with them, and you know all his secret deliveries. They betrayed him... Virushka is on your side now. Don't hurry though, give the crowd the time to applaud. Then it's all simple, he'll bowl you a long hop and you'll hit it for the winning four. Even if you mishit it, don't worry, it'll be taken care of. Just make the connection.”

As dusk descended and the lights took over, up in the president's box, two well-dressed, middle-aged men sat watching the rapidly filling-up stands started throbbing with the percussive rhythms unleashed by the DJ.

“Heard they brought a boy straight out of Chhayanaut for tonight,” said Rahman, who once used to play whole days for his country. “Could be big, they tell me.”

“Who would've known we would be so big, the biggest in the world,” said Hossain, Rahman's erstwhile teammate.

“HAHAHA!,” Rahman guffawed. “They used to play Tests; can you believe it sitting here today? Five freakin' days instead of five overs! If not that, then it was seven-hour one-day matches. Even the shortest format was three-and-a-half hours of mostly cricket. Seriously man, thank god for Shane McMahon. The WWE and cricket are such a natural fit.”

“Yeah, but it still needed vision to see that. I would say it was 2017 that changed all that. Remember that year, the BPL? The chaos about the match shifting from Sunday to Monday for rain even though there was no reserve day. Yeah, the best part was the justification... they said it was for the greater interest of the tournament. Once that was accepted, you were just a few excuses away from the real thing.”

“We can't take all the credit, you know,” Rahman countered. “Right after the BPL, the T10 Cricket League just changed everything. It was only a matter of time. And wasn't it that same year that the four-day Test was played? Things were trending towards this.”

“Yes, but someone had to see the trend then, and I am just happy we got there before the IPL. Who would have thought in 2017, that just 20 years later, Bangladesh would be the centre of the cricketing universe.”

“Sports entertainment universe,” spat out an indignant voice from the corner. It was one of the national captains in 2017, someone not as enamoured with BPEL as his juniors were. The old-timer, however, was brought around to the events to appease some fellow backward thinkers with a few selfies.

“Same difference,” snorted Hossain before muttering to Rahman, “Such a downer, no wonder he used to play Tests.”

The lights went out. The speakers went silent, momentarily before Modi's showbiz voice boomed out, “This is Bangladesh Premier Entertainment League and welcome to Crickomania!”

Then the captain's music hit and the crowd went wild.

Sakeb Subhan works in the sports section of The Daily Star.