The morning of August 26, 2020, did not feel like the beginning of a sporting season. It felt like an eviction.
Inside the master bedroom of the Shamshabad farmhouse, the atmosphere was suffocating. The large windows were open, letting in the cool, damp breeze of the late monsoon, but the fresh air did nothing to lift the mood in the room.
Siddanth Deva stood near the foot of the bed, staring down at his open kitbag. He was meticulously folding a stack of training shirts, placing them into the compartments.
He hated this.
He had delayed his departure for as long as the Sunrisers Hyderabad management and the BCCI protocols would legally allow. The majority of the domestic players had already assembled at the ITC Kakatiya hotel in the city center days ago, beginning their preliminary isolation and testing phases. The franchise ownership had afforded Deva the leeway to arrive at the final deadline. He had used that leverage to secure every single possible extra hour inside the safe, fortified bubble of his family.
Now, the deadline had arrived.
Krithika was sitting on the edge of the mattress, her knees pulled up to her chest, watching him.
"I don't like this, Sid," Krithika said, her voice quiet but tight with strain.
Deva stopped folding. He rested his hands on the edge of the heavy bag and looked up at her.
"I know," he replied softly.
"It's not just a cricket tour," Krithika continued, her fingers gripping the fabric of her cotton trousers. "The cases are peaking everywhere. The hospitals in the city are full. And you are going to go live in hotels, sit in airplanes, and be surrounded by hundreds of people. A bio-bubble is just a word. It only takes one mistake from a hotel staff member, one breach in the protocol."
Deva walked around the bed and sat down beside her. He reached out, gently pulling her hands away from her knees and holding them in his own. Her fingers were cold.
"I share your reluctance," Deva said. "If I had a choice, I would forfeit the contract and stay right here. But the BCCI has committed to the UAE. The broadcast rights, the sponsorships, the logistics... the financial ecosystem of Indian cricket is demanding this tournament happens. I am the national captain. If I pull out, the precedent it sets could collapse the league."
"I don't care about the league," Krithika said, her voice wavering slightly. "I care about you."
"I know," Deva murmured, pulling her gently against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, resting his chin in her hair. "I will be careful, Krithi. I promise you. I won't take an unnecessary risk. I will follow every protocol they have. It's just a job. I go, I finish the tournament, and I come back to you."
They sat in the bedroom for a long time, holding each other, neither of them wanting to break the embrace and acknowledge that the clock was ticking.
When they finally walked downstairs, the subdued atmosphere had permeated the ground floor.
The elders were gathered near the main entrance hallway. Vikram and Subba Rao stood near the heavy wooden doors, their expressions solemn. Sesikala and Suma were standing near the archway leading to the living room, their hands folded tightly. Anjali stood nearby lacking any of her usual sarcastic energy.
Deva walked up to them, his heavy kitbag slung over his right shoulder. He dropped the bag near the door with a dull thud.
"Nanna. Mama," Deva said, his voice dropping. "Make sure nobody steps outside these gates. I don't care if there is a family emergency in the city, or if a distant relative needs help. You route everything through Rahul's logistics team. You do not leave this property."
"We understand, Siddanth," Subba Rao nodded firmly, his mind fully recognizing the gravity of the situation. "The perimeter will remain sealed."
Deva turned to Captain Shetty, the head of the security detail, who was standing respectfully near the porch.
"Shetty. The sanitization protocols for external deliveries are to be doubled. All incoming fuel, and medical supplies sit in the UV-holding bay for twenty-four hours before crossing the inner wall. No exceptions."
"Yes, sir," Shetty replied, his posture rigid. "The estate is locked down."
"Eat whatever they give you in the hotel, Siddanth," Sesikala whispered, her maternal anxieties overriding everything else. "Do not skip meals just because you are isolated."
"I will, Amma," Deva promised softly.
He turned around. Krithika was standing near the living room entrance, holding Rishi on her hip. Beside her, Suma was holding Aadhya.
Deva walked over to them. Knot of dread in his chest tightened until it was almost painful. He looked at his children. They were two and a half years old. They had no concept of a pandemic, of bio-bubbles, or of the terrifying reality of the world outside the farmhouse walls. To them, it was just another morning.
He knelt down on the carpet. Suma gently set Aadhya on her feet, and Krithika lowered Rishi to the ground.
Aadhya immediately waddled forward, slapping her small hands against Deva's knees, babbling a string of happy, nonsensical syllables. Rishi walked up beside her, placing a small hand on Deva's shoulder, looking at the large black bag near the door with mild curiosity.
Deva looked at their bright, innocent eyes. The thought of not seeing them every morning, of missing their chaotic runs across the lawn for the next three months, felt like a weight crushing his lungs. He felt a prickle of heat behind his eyes. He refused to cry. He did not want to leave them with a memory of him looking sad or frightened.
He needed to make them laugh.
Deva reached out, pulling Aadhya gently by the waist until she was flush against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her tightly.
Then, he moved his head, pressing his lips against her chubby cheek. With a low, playful growl, he gently, playfully bit down on her cheek, blowing a loud raspberry against her skin.
Aadhya gasped in surprise, her eyes going wide, before she erupted into a loud, breathless shriek of delighted laughter. She squirmed in his arms, pushing his face away with her tiny hands, giggling uncontrollably.
"Ah! My cheek!" Deva joked, nuzzling her again, drawing another wave of laughter from her.
He released her and turned immediately to Rishi. He scooped the boy into a tight hug, holding him close, feeling the steady beat of his son's heart. He pulled back just enough to lean in and playfully bite Rishi's cheek in the same manner.
Rishi let out a startled, amused giggle, a rare sound from the usually observant toddler. He pushed his small palms against Deva's nose, trying to wiggle away, a bright smile lighting up his face.
The sound of their laughter echoed in the quiet hallway. It was a beautiful, bittersweet melody. It masked the heavy, silent tears that Krithika was quickly wiping from her own eyes, and it covered the reluctance in Deva's heart.
He stood up slowly, giving them both one last, lingering look.
He pulled Krithika into a final, fierce embrace, holding her so tightly she briefly lost her breath.
"Lock the doors," Deva whispered to her.
He turned, grabbed his kitbag by the heavy strap, and walked out the front door. He did not look back. If he looked back, he wasn't sure he would have the willpower to get into the car.
He walked down the short stone steps to the driveway. The usual fleet of security SUVs was absent. He had explicitly instructed Rahul that he wanted to drive himself. .
He threw his bags into the back of his dark slate Range Rover, climbed into the driver's seat, and started the engine.
The heavy iron gates of the Shamshabad estate slowly rolled open. Deva drove through them, and as they clanged shut behind him, the safety of his sanctuary vanished in the rearview mirror.
The drive into Hyderabad was a jarring, deeply unsettling experience.
Deva drove down the wide, multi-lane highway leading toward the city center. The roads, which should have been choked with morning traffic of one of India's largest tech hubs, were deserted.
The silence of the city was dystopian.
He passed rows of closed shops, their metal shutters pulled down and locked. The massive IT parks in the distance looked like abandoned glass monuments. At major intersections, police barricades were set up, manned by officers wearing blue surgical masks and holding long wooden lathis. The few civilians he saw on the streets—delivery drivers or municipal workers—were walking with their heads down, their faces covered by cloth masks, moving with a palpable sense of fear and urgency.
The vibrant, chaotic, beautiful city he knew and loved had been muted by the invisible terror of the virus.
Forty minutes later, he pulled the Range Rover into the heavy security perimeter of the ITC Kakatiya hotel.
Under normal circumstances, his arrival at a luxury hotel during the IPL season would be met with a swarm of valet drivers, eager hotel managers holding bouquets of flowers, and a lobby full of fans trying to sneak a photograph.
Today, the entrance looked like the triage wing of a hospital.
There was no valet. The driveway was cordoned off with yellow caution tape. As Deva parked the vehicle and stepped out, he was approached by two men wearing full, head-to-toe white PPE suits, blue nitrile gloves, and plastic face shields.
"Mr. Deva," a muffled voice said from behind a mask. "Please leave your luggage. Our sanitization team will spray it with disinfectant before it is brought to your room. Please step this way."
Deva nodded silently, handing over his keys. He followed the PPE-clad worker toward a side entrance. The main lobby doors were locked.
They walked through a service corridor that had been stripped of its luxury furnishings. The carpets had been covered with thick plastic sheeting. The air did not smell of the hotel's signature lavender and sandalwood fragrance; it smelled of industrial bleach and raw alcohol sanitizer.
He was guided into a small, sterile conference room on the ground floor. A medical team was waiting.
"Please sit, sir," a nurse instructed, gesturing to a plastic chair in the center of the room. She was wearing a heavy N95 mask and a visor. Her eyes looked tired.
Deva sat down. He knew the protocol. The BCCI had mandated strict RT-PCR testing upon arrival before any player was allowed into the hotel's designated secure zones.
"Tilt your head back, please," the nurse said, stepping forward with a long, thin, flexible swab.
Deva tilted his head. The nurse inserted the swab deep into his nasal cavity. The sensation was uncomfortable, a sharp, burning pressure that made his eyes water instantly. She twisted it for a few seconds before withdrawing it and placing it into a sterile vial.
"The test is complete," the nurse said, labeling the vial. "You will be escorted to your room on the isolated floor. You are not permitted to open your door, step into the hallway, or interact with any staff or teammates until your results are confirmed negative by the laboratory. The process takes approximately twenty-four hours."
"Understood. Thank you," Deva said, his voice slightly raspy from the swab.
He was escorted into a designated service elevator, riding up in complete silence with another PPE-clad security guard. They stopped on the fifth floor. The hallway was dead quiet. A strip of blue tape was sealed across the edge of every door frame on the floor, indicating that the occupants inside had not yet been cleared.
The guard opened room 512, stepping aside to let Deva enter.
"Your meals will be left on a tray outside your door in disposable containers," the guard informed him. "Please do not open the door until you hear the staff member leave the hallway. Have a good day, sir."
The door closed with a heavy click. The automatic lock engaged.
Deva stood in the center of the hotel room. It was a standard luxury suite, complete with a king-sized bed, a heavy desk, and a large window overlooking the city.
His disinfected kitbag was sitting near the closet, smelling faintly of chemical spray.
He walked over to the bed, sat down heavily on the mattress, and pulled his phone from his pocket.
He initiated a video call. Krithika answered almost instantly.
She was sitting on the veranda at the farmhouse, the bright green leaves of the mango trees visible in the background. The familiar, beautiful sight made Deva's chest ache violently.
"You made it?" Krithika asked, her eyes scanning his face, looking for any sign of distress.
"I made it," Deva nodded, leaning back against the headboard, forcing a small, reassuring smile. "I'm in the room. They swabbed me. Now I just wait."
"Is it terrible?" she asked quietly.
"It smells like a hospital. The silence is the hardest part. I keep expecting Aadhya to come running around the corner of the bed."
Krithika offered a sympathetic smile. "She's currently trying to feed a piece of a biscuit to Ronny. Rishi is taking a nap. We miss you already, Sid."
"I miss you too," Deva murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "I'll call you as soon as the results come back tomorrow. Stay inside the gates, Krithi."
"We will. I love you."
"I love you too."
---
The next afternoon, the phone on the desk rang sharply.
Deva answered it. It was the BCCI medical liaison.
"Mr. Deva, your RT-PCR results have returned negative. You are officially cleared to exit room isolation. Please proceed to the fourth floor. The green zone has been established for the Sunrisers Hyderabad squad. Your teammates are awaiting you in the primary conference room."
"Thank you," Deva said.
He stood up, put on a fresh N95 mask, and walked to the door.
He took the stairs down to the fourth floor, pushing through the heavy double doors into the designated green zone.
The conference room was massive, but the furniture had been rearranged. Instead of a long, unified table, individual chairs were spaced two meters apart in a wide, socially distanced semi-circle.
As Deva walked in, the entire room went silent.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad squad was assembled. They were all wearing matching black and orange training gear, and every single man in the room was wearing a mask.
Deva looked around the room, taking a quick inventory of his team.
In the back row, the foreign contingent sat together. David Warner, usually a boundless ball of chaotic energy, was sitting quietly, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes looking tired above his mask. The quarantine process upon flying into India, combined with the distance from his family in Australia during a global crisis, was clearly weighing on him. Beside him, Kane Williamson offered a calm, measured nod.
Shane Watson and Dale Steyn sat near the windows. The two veterans had toured the world for nearly two decades. They had played in hostile environments, endured intense pressure, and faced the fiercest crowds. But looking at the spaced-out chairs and the masked faces, Deva could see the resignation in their eyes. This was not the cricket they knew.
In the middle row, the core of the team sat together. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, returning from his rehabilitation, gave Deva a brief wave. Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma, and Rahul Chahar were talking quietly among themselves, their body language stiff and uncomfortable. Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi, the Afghan stars, sat nearby, their expressions unreadable behind their masks.
But it was the front row that drew Deva's immediate attention.
The youngest members of the squad were sitting there. Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, and Arjun Tendulkar. They were kids. They were in their early twenties, stepping onto the biggest, most glamorous stage in franchise cricket, only to find themselves locked inside a medical fortress.
Deva walked to the front of the room, standing facing the spaced-out semi-circle.
"Welcome to Hyderabad, gentlemen," Deva began.
"I am not going to stand here and give you a motivational speech about how excited we are for the IPL," Deva continued, his honesty cutting through the sterile air of the room. "I am not going to pretend this is normal. It isn't. The world outside this hotel is struggling. People are losing their livelihoods, their families, and their lives. The fact that we are sitting in a luxury hotel preparing to play a game is a privilege, but right now, it feels like a heavy burden."
He saw Warner nod slowly in agreement from the back row.
"This bio-bubble is going to test you," Deva warned, pacing slowly in front of them. "It is going to test your mind far more than the matches will test your body. You are going to miss your families. You are going to feel isolated. The silence in your rooms will be loud. The empty stadiums in the UAE will feel unnatural."
He stopped, looking at the young players in the front row—Gill, Samad, Abhishek, and Arjun.
"But you are not alone in those rooms," Deva said, his voice dropping into a register of fierce, unwavering support. "Look around you. This room is your family for the next three months. We eat together. We train together. We suffer the protocols together. If you are struggling, if the isolation is getting to you, you do not sit in your room and stare at the wall. You call me. You call Kane. You call David. We carry each other through this."
He turned his gaze to the veterans. "Bhuvi. Watto. Dale. I need your experience. I need you to anchor the dressing room. Keep the youngsters focused on the ball, not the bubble."
Steyn offered a thumbs-up from the corner.
"The rules of this bubble are absolute," Deva stated, his tone hardening, shifting into the uncompromising captain the world feared. "The virus does not care about your batting average. One breached protocol, one unauthorized contact with external staff, and you compromise this entire squad. You compromise the tournament. If I see anyone violating the distancing protocols, you will not play. You will be sent home. Protect the bubble, protect the team."
He paused, letting the reality of his words settle over them.
"We are going to the UAE," Deva finished. "We are going to live in a fortress. And while we are there, we are going to do the only thing we can do to justify our presence on that pitch. We will be playing putting our hearts into it. For the fans who are locked in their homes watching us on television, we will give them a reason to cheer. Understood?"
"Yes, skip."
The next forty-eight hours within the hotel's green zone were a blur of coordinated logistics. The squad ate their meals at spaced-out tables. They held tactical meetings in small, isolated groups. The natural, chaotic banter of a cricket team was heavily subdued by the barriers between them.
Finally, the day of departure arrived.
The transition from the hotel to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport was a scene straight out of a dystopian science fiction film.
The players were gathered in the lobby, standing two meters apart. The sleek, customized SRH travel blazers they normally wore had been discarded.
Instead, the entire squad was mandated to wear full, disposable white PPE coveralls. They wore blue surgical shoe covers, thick blue nitrile gloves, tight N95 masks, and heavy, clear plastic face shields that strapped around their foreheads.
They were ushered out of the hotel and onto a fleet of sanitized buses.
The drive to the airport was silent.
The terminal was a ghost town. The only people visible were airport security personnel wearing their own heavy protective gear, communicating through muffled walkie-talkies.
The squad moved through the security checkpoints in a single-file line, maintaining strict social distancing.
Deva walked up the metal stairs of the boarding ramp, the plastic of his PPE suit crinkling loudly with every step. The humid evening air of Hyderabad offered no relief.
He stepped into the cabin of the chartered wide-body aircraft. The flight attendants, also dressed in full protective gear, directed the players to their widely spaced seats.
Deva found his designated window seat near the front of the aircraft. He sat down heavily, the thick plastic suit pulling uncomfortably against his shoulders. He reached up, carefully unstrapping the plastic face shield and setting it on the empty seat beside him, though the N95 mask remained tightly secured over his nose and mouth.
He looked around the cabin. David Warner was sitting a few rows back, staring blankly at the seatback in front of him. Shubman Gill was closing his eyes, trying to regulate his breathing inside the suffocating suit. Bhuvi was looking out the window on the opposite side.
There was no laughter. There was no excitement. They were athletes flying into an isolated, sterile desert to play a game while the world burned around them.
The heavy cabin doors were pulled shut, sealing with a pressurized hiss.
The engines of the aircraft whined to life, a low, powerful vibration that rattled the floorboards. The plane pushed back from the gate, taxiing slowly down the empty runway.
Deva turned his head, leaning slightly against the cool glass of the window.
The aircraft accelerated, the engines roaring as it lifted smoothly off the tarmac, banking gracefully over the dark expanse of the city.
Below him, the lights of Hyderabad stretched out in a vast, silent grid. Somewhere out there, hidden in the darkness beyond the city limits, was the Shamshabad farmhouse. Somewhere out there, Krithika was putting the twins to bed. Rishi was probably holding his stuffed elephant, and Aadhya was likely fighting sleep.