12th Man to Cricket Legend

Author's Note:🏆

Hey everyone! Before we jump into today's chapter, I just wanted to say a massive thank you for reading. Your votes, comments, and support mean the world to me. Happy reading! 💖

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If you like the story, remember to give a review. It'll motivate me to continue with same passion ✌️😁

And, Extra love to some readers who are supporting me ❤️

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[ A/N: Guys! I'm now about to start writing on BGT 2014. What kind of results do you wanna see??

A. Rudra as the highest run scorer from (Punter Template is perfect there tho)

B. Kohli as the highest run scorer, Rudra 2nd.

Also, Dhoni mid retirement drama won't happen since he already gave up test captaincy, but he'll definitely retire from test after this series. I don't to drag it out... Forget about winning the series. Our squad was too weak for this tour, even with Rudra as a buff, can't handle it, or else it'll become boring for future matches.

Please comment your thoughts below, I'm open to suggestions and pls don't forget to leave a review! ]

___

The humidity of Cuttack hung heavy in the evening air, but inside the Rudra household, something far more charged had settled over the room, and that was fucking tension, thick enough to cut.

On the screen, the ITC Gardenia in Bengaluru shimmered as a sea of tailored suits and hushed, high-stakes whispers. Richard Madley, the man behind cricket's most famous gavel, stood at the podium with the poise of a conductor bracing to lead a chaotic symphony he alone could control.

Inside his home, Rocky sat on the porch steps, fingers buried deep in Shadow's thick coat.

The pup leaned his full weight against Rocky's leg, occasionally glancing upward, ears twitching, as though he could sense something coiled tight beneath his owner's calm exterior.

___

The Expert Panel: "The Nerfing of Mumbai"

Harsha Bhogle: "This has become the most contentious storyline in IPL history. We're already calling it the Rocky Rule. The BCCI has essentially declared that once a player crosses a certain threshold of dominance — six hundred and sixty-four runs on debut in the IPL, four hundred and fifty-four more in the CLT20 — no franchise can simply shield him behind a retention tag. He goes into the open market, full stop."

Sanjay Manjrekar: "It's a direct blow aimed squarely at Mumbai. Rocky plays his domestic cricket for the city, he's been their prized discovery from day one, and yet today, the Ambanis find themselves fighting for a boy they arguably built from scratch, of course, I'm talking about giving him a platform to display his talent... Now factor in the purse math. Mumbai Indians have already used their retentions on Rohit, Malinga, and Pollard. They're walking into this auction carrying a considerable target on their backs."

Ravi Shastri: "And here's the real sting, Sanjay — look at how the sets have been ordered! The board has pushed the uncapped and special categories deeper into the schedule. That forces Mumbai to spend early on bowlers and role players first. By the time Rocky's card finally comes up, will there even be enough purse left standing to fight for him?"

___

The Marquee Set

The auction opened with a roar that rippled straight through the ITC Gardenia ballroom.

Yuvraj Singh's card went up first, and the room tipped instantly into a frenzy — paddles rising, franchise tables leaning forward in unison.

Richard Madley: "I have ten crores... twelve crores... fourteen crores, with the Delhi Daredevils! Any advance on fourteen?"

The cameras swung toward the RCB table.

Vijay Mallya sat back in his chair, unbothered, deep in quiet conversation with his management team. Not a single paddle went up from that end.

Whatever promise, whatever whisper campaign had preceded the auction, it had clearly been nothing more than a smokescreen.

A stunned murmur passed through the room.

Harsha Bhogle: "RCB is letting Yuvraj go? This is enormous. They're allowing the biggest name in the entire marquee set to slip past without so much as raising a paddle. Which can only mean one thing — they're saving that purse for something. Or someone."

___

The Intermediate Rounds

As the morning wore on, a clearer picture began to emerge. Mumbai Indians were already feeling the squeeze — they needed a genuine strike bowler to pair alongside Malinga, and when Jasprit Bumrah's card came up among the uncapped names, they fought for him hard, eventually locking him down for a hefty sum.

Every crore spent, though, felt like a drop of blood leaving a wound they couldn't yet see the size of.

Their hope, unspoken but obvious to anyone watching the table, was that rival franchises would exhaust themselves first, leaving just enough purse behind for Mumbai to buy their own boy back safely.

Meanwhile, with the untouched Yuvraj money still sitting in reserve, RCB began circling like a shark that had caught the scent of blood in the water.

They picked up Mitchell Starc for what amounted to a bargain, then outmuscled everyone — Sunrisers Hyderabad included — to land young King of Swing, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Piece by piece, they were assembling a genuine bowling powerhouse, all while keeping what commentators had started calling their nuclear option firmly locked away.

___

Lot 15

Richard Madley: "We move now to a rather special category. Lot fifteen. The player who has, quite frankly, forced this committee to rewrite its own rulebook. From Odisha, representing Mumbai in domestic cricket... Rocky Rudra. Base price, two crores!"

A graphic flashed up on the giant screen behind the podium, and for a moment, the entire room seemed to fall quiet, reading.

[ROCKY RUDRA]

Age: 19

Career stats -

IPL 2013 (Debut): 644 runs, strike rate 187, average 92, across 10 matches.

Champions League T20 2013: 5 matches, 454 runs, strike rate 248, average 90.8.

Buchi Babu Tournament: 1,145 runs in 4 matches, average 286.25.

Test: 808 runs in 3 matches (6 innings), average 161.6 — three hundreds, including one double-hundred.

...

The room went deathly silent. As Rocky Rudra's stats flashed up across the giant screen, the numbers stopped looking like data altogether and started reading like something closer to a death sentence for every bowling attack still left in the league.

Owners who had been casually chatting seconds earlier now leaned forward in their chairs, eyes fixed on the screen, visibly winded by the sheer weight of a 248 strike rate sitting beside a 1,145-run rampage through the Buchi Babu tournament.

And nobody in that room could find an angle to argue against it — not when the boy had already proven himself against South Africa's best on their own turf, then done it again in New Zealand for good measure.

The usual auction-room chatter dropped away entirely, replaced by something heavier, almost suffocating, as franchise after franchise stared at the screen in something close to a trance.

This was no longer a player profile flashing up there. It was a monolith of impossible math, one that made every other name still sitting in that pool look faintly amateur by comparison.

Richard Madley let his eyes sweep across the room once the weight of it had settled. "I must remind all franchises, that under the special provisions attached to this lot, the Right to Match card has been suspended. This is a direct acquisition. Opening bid at two crores?"

The Mumbai Indians paddle shot up instantly. Chennai Super Kings jumped straight to four. Rajasthan Royals pushed it further, to seven.

Ravi Shastri: "Here we go! The price is doubling every ten seconds out there! Mumbai's looking nervous already — Young Akash is checking his numbers every single time another paddle goes up."

By ten crores, both Rajasthan and Chennai had dropped out, leaving Mumbai Indians alone at the table.

There was a visible loosening of shoulders on their side, a flicker of relief — they believed they'd fended off the vultures circling above.

Madley: "Ten crores to the Mumbai Indians. Going once... going twice..."

Then, without warning, the RCB paddle rose. Vijay Mallya himself gave a single, unhurried nod toward the auctioneer.

Madley swung his arm toward the RCB table, his voice climbing. "Twelve crores to RCB!"

The Mumbai table dissolved into quiet panic.

They knew Bangalore still held purse in reserve, but their working theory had always been that RCB were hoarding it to snap up unsold players later in the day, given how settled their top order already looked.

Nobody at that table had seriously entertained the idea that RCB would come after Rocky — an opener, a probable middle-order weapon, a player who didn't obviously slot into gaps they thought they'd already filled.

Mumbai had already committed heavily to Bumrah, though he had yet to perform well, he had shown promise and even malinga was marvelled by his talent, which was supposed to be impossible, given with his unique bowling style.

They'd already spent on their middle-order depth. When they checked what remained, the number staring back at them read eleven crores and eighty lakhs.

Harsha Bhogle: "They're out! Mumbai Indians are sitting twenty lakhs short, if you can believe that! The Rocky Rule, combined with pushing his lot to sit right after the uncapped category, has worked exactly as designed. Mumbai simply cannot raise another paddle!"

Richard Madley: "Twelve crores to the Royal Challengers Bangalore. For the last time... sold!"

___

In Cuttack, Rocky let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

There was a flicker of disappointment in him, knowing he wouldn't be pulling on the Mumbai colours he'd grown up around.

His agent Bunty had warned him well in advance that this exact scenario was possible, though some quiet part of him had still held onto the hope of staying home. Mumbai, for their part, had gambled on Bumrah early and assumed nobody would push Rocky's price past ten crores — a miscalculation that belonged entirely to them, with nobody else to blame for it.

After all, you can't be too greedy and wanting to hog all talents under you.

Shadow let out a low howl from beside the porch steps, picking up on the shift in the air before Rocky had even said a word.

Back on screen, Vijay Mallya was already trading high-fives with his RCB management team.

The Bad Boys, as the internet and the world called them, were officially united under one roof.

___

Times of India: "The Great Heist: How RCB Used the 'Rocky Rule' to Steal the Wolf From Mumbai's Den."

Within three minutes, #RockyToRCB had climbed to the number one trending spot worldwide.

Mumbai Indians' fans were already wailing, already starting denouncing their team... The entire fanbase slid into something close to mourning. Their local domestic hero, the boy who'd cut his teeth at the Wankhede nets, was now headed straight into a rival dressing room.

Ravi Shastri: "This is a seismic shift! Gayle, Kohli, De Villiers, and now Rocky Rudra walking into the same lineup. That isn't a batting order anymore, that's an Avengers roll call. The BCCI set out to balance this league, and somehow, almost by accident, they've built a monster in Bangalore instead!"

Rocky glanced down at his phone. A message from Virat had just landed on the screen:

"See you in the Red and Gold, Mowgli. I believe we're going to break this league wide open."

Rocky smiled, letting the last of his hesitation go, and rested a hand on Shadow's head.

The Wolf was no longer part of the Mumbai den.

He was headed to the Garden City instead.

___

The air inside the ITC Gardenia auction room still carried the static charge of the Rudra bid long after the gavel had come down.

The record had been set, and over at the Mumbai Indians table, faces sat frozen in something close to slow-motion tragedy.

Vijay Mallya, shades on, blazer sharp, strolled toward the waiting scrum of microphones with the unmistakable swagger of a man who'd just won a high-stakes hand of poker without ever once showing his cards.

___

The "King of Good Times" Speaks: The Post-Auction Interview

Interviewer: "Mr. Mallya, the question on everyone's mind right now — your top order already features Gayle, Kohli, and De Villiers. Why spend a staggering twelve crores on Rocky Rudra when your squad balance was already drawing scrutiny before today?"

Mallya let out a short, sharp laugh, his trademark grin widening. "Why wouldn't I? Honestly, that's the question you're asking me? Understand something — this was our plan from the very first minute we walked into this room. We sat through the entire marquee set, we let almost every big name pass us by, we stayed silent while everyone else torched their budgets. We did all of that for exactly one reason: so we could buy Rocky Rudra."

Interviewer: "But the cost, sir? It effectively ended Mumbai's chase before it began and possibly earned Yuvraj Singh's dissatisfaction."

Mallya just shrugged before speaking, "Well, this is business war. You can't please anyone. From the beginning our target was Rocky. I can only say sorry to Yuvi... Also remember, after AB, we genuinely had no good batting depth left to speak of anyway. So we spent our early energy on the ball instead — Starc, Bhuvi, Varun Aaron, Chahal, Murali, all locked in. Once the bowling attack was settled, we sat on every remaining rupee for one man, and one man only. I believe this will go down as the greatest steal I've pulled off since we picked up Virat back in the 2008 draft. Rocky isn't just any other random player walking into this squad. He's the missing piece of our championship puzzle."

"The boy simply has that big-game aura about him."

With that, he turned and walked off, swaying slightly with the satisfied gait of a man who'd just picked up a trophy he intended to brag about to every billionaire he knew.

___

Media Frenzy: "The Great Bangalore Heist"

Within minutes, every sports channel across India had pivoted entirely to the Rocky-to-RCB story.

Split screens flashed between a jubilant RCB management box and a stone-faced Mumbai Indians camp still processing what had just happened.

Times Now: "THE ROCKY RULE BACKFIRES! BCCI's Plan to Balance the League Creates a Batting Superpower in Bangalore!"

Star Sports: "The 12-Crore Gamble: Can RCB's 'Big Four' of Gayle, Kohli, AB, and Rudra Be Stopped?"

NDTV Profit: "MI Purse Exhausted: How the Ambanis Lost Their Local Hero to the King of Good Times."

Harsha Bhogle (on air): "It's a tactical masterclass, however you look at it. By forcing Mumbai to choose between the promise of Bumrah and the already-proven brilliance of Rudra, the BCCI essentially handed RCB the keys to the kingdom without RCB having to lift a finger for it. Mumbai's fanbase is going to find this one very hard to swallow."

___

The MI fanbase Meltdown: Loyalty in Flames

On Twitter, the hashtag #DoneWithMI began climbing within the hour.

In 2014, Jasprit Bumrah remained something of a project, a raw young quick with an unorthodox action and undeniable promise, but promise all the same. Rocky Rudra, by contrast, was already a global name, a proven teenager who had personally dismantled Steyn and Philander on their own soil.

For a large section of the fanbase, the choice felt unforgivable.

@Wankhede_Warrior: "Spent 9.5 crore on a kid with a strange action but couldn't scrape together twenty more lakhs for Rocky? I'm done. Supporting RCB from today. #DoneWithMI"

@MumbaiChiPorgi: "Rocky is the reason I fell in love with this team in the first place, even though he played one season. If the management can't protect our local Odisha-Mumbai hero, they don't deserve my loyalty anymore. Bye MI. ✌️"

@CricketGuru_88: "Bumrah is still unproven. Rudra is already a legend in the making. Management just committed suicide at that table. My jersey's going straight in the bin. #TeamRudra"

@BlueGold_Bile: "Choosing a bowler who hasn't done a thing yet over a man who averaged 161 across South Africa and New Zealand. Total clown behaviour from that table."

@Virat_03263: "I can't understand what MI management was thinking. Even if you believe that Bumrah has enormous potential, even if Malinga personally vouched for him... What about Rudra? He just won you 2 trophies in a year. Don't forget that Rudra got Punter and master blaster's blessings. Surely, you don't think that Malinga is bigger than them, do you? Anyway, thanks for gifting rudra to us. Lol."

@RudraFanClub_11: "My loyalty was always to the player, never the badge. Rocky's gone to RCB? Fine by me. I'm moving to the Garden City too. Go Challengers! 🐺🔴"

@Paltan_Reject: "The Rocky Rule was a trap, and Mumbai walked straight into it with their eyes open. Why chase Bumrah first? Rudra was the whole reason we lifted the IPL and the CLT20. Following Rudra now. Bye."

@MI_Hater_Now: "Unbelievable. Our own domestic superstar is gone because someone in that room wanted to be clever. There is no strategy on earth without Rocky Rudra in it."

@TheIndianWolf_Loyalist: "I don't care about history at this point. Rocky was the heart of our team. Mumbai's just a corporate logo now. RCB has the soul. I'm switching team. Bye Mumbai."

@CricShots_019: "Bumrah over Rudra. In what universe does that trade make sense? One's a teenager conquering the world, the other's a punt. Genuinely pathetic call."

@RockyArmy_11: "Just changed my bio from 'MI Forever' to 'Rocky's Shadow'. If he's in red and gold, so am I. #RCB"

@Rich_Anger: "Nita Ma'am, you let the boy walk. Dadar won't forget this in a hurry. He built his memories at the Wankhede, and now he'll go celebrate under the Chinnaswamy lights instead."

@StatsGuy_MI: "Rocky put up 664 runs last season. Bumrah took, what, a handful of wickets in comparison? The maths simply doesn't add up. Management let us down, big time."

@BadBoyRudra_Fan: "Rocky and Virat sharing a dressing room? The league's basically decided already. Mumbai just handed RCB the trophy on a silver plate. Unsubscribing from MI TV as we speak."

@OdishaCricket_Power: "Our boy got treated like a commodity by the BCCI, and Mumbai let it happen without a fight. No more support from Odisha. We're all RCBians now!"

@GullyCricket_Expert: "Watching Mallya laugh at that press conference was the final straw for me. He outplayed everyone in that room. Following Rocky now. Wherever the Wolf goes, the pack follows."

___

The Scene in Cuttack

Back on the porch, Rocky scrolled through the footage flooding his phone, clip after clip of furious fans, one showing someone setting an MI flag alight in the middle of Dadar, the flames catching a passing streetlight.

He let out a long sigh, one hand resting on Shadow's back, the pup now thoroughly absorbed in gnawing on a battered tennis ball he'd dug up from somewhere in the yard.

"It's not my fault, buddy," Rocky whispered, more to himself than to the dog. "I wanted to stay. But if they want to play it this way, we'll give them exactly that."

The phone buzzed again in his hand, except this time it wasn't a text.

It was a call.

The caller ID showed a number he didn't recognise, no saved contact, just a location tag reading Bangalore.

He picked up.

"Welcome to the madhouse, Rocky," a voice said on the other end, not Vijaya Mallya himself, but a familiar, gravelly tone he recognised as one of RCB's scouts. "The King of Good Times wants you in Bangalore by Monday. We've already got a jersey sitting here with your name stitched onto the back."

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(A/N: Want to read advance chapters? Check the author's note and give Power Stones ❤️)

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By the way, don't forget to throw power stones and leave a review to motivate me 💎 :)