Cricket is my first love.

Host:
The stadium was silent now — an empty coliseum of memories and echoes. The lights, half-dimmed, still hummed faintly above, casting long shadows across the pitch that had once held thousands of voices, rising and falling like the tide. The faint smell of cut grass, sweat, and dust hung in the air — that unmistakable perfume of battle and devotion.

In the far corner, near the boundary line, Jack sat on the worn benches, a half-empty water bottle beside him. His shirt clung to his back, and his hands were covered with chalky dust. His grey eyes, reflective under the faint light, were fixed on the crease — the sacred spot where victory and heartbreak meet like old friends.

Jeeny stood near the pavilion door, watching him with quiet amusement. Her hair caught the light in soft waves, and her hands were tucked into her jacket pockets. The way she looked at him was half tenderness, half question — as if she were trying to read a scripture written in grass and silence.

Outside, a breeze moved across the field, carrying a whisper of ghost cheers — a stadium remembering its own heartbeat.

Jack: “‘Cricket is my first love.’” He said it without turning around, his voice low, more to the field than to her. “Yohan Blake said that. Not a cricketer, funny enough. A sprinter. But maybe that makes it truer.”

Host:
The sound of distant thunder rolled softly in the night, like applause too late to matter.

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s because first loves aren’t about skill. They’re about belonging.”

Jack: “Belonging?” He smiled faintly, his eyes still on the pitch. “You can’t belong to a game. It’s just rules, boundaries, numbers.”

Jeeny: “You say that, but you talk about cricket the way some people talk about God.”

Jack: “God doesn’t drop catches.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But He probably understands the silence after you do.”

Host:
The floodlight flickered once, the glow shifting slightly across the grass, illuminating the faint white lines that had faded after years of play. Jack’s hands moved unconsciously, mimicking the motion of a bowler mid-delivery — muscle memory haunted by repetition.

Jack: “I used to think it was just a sport. Then I realized it was rhythm. Discipline. Redemption. Every match, every over — you’re writing your own small scripture of control and chaos.”

Jeeny: “So cricket taught you religion?”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe it taught me patience. That’s close enough.”

Jeeny: “And love?”

Jack: “Love’s too big a word for something that breaks your heart every other day.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s exactly what love is.”

Host:
A gust of wind stirred the dust around them, soft and golden in the half-light. The scoreboard still stood tall, its numbers faded, like the remnants of a once-beating pulse.

Jack: “You know, the first time I held a bat, I thought it was power. Control. But the more I played, the more I realized it was surrender — a dance between hope and chance.”

Jeeny: “That sounds like poetry, not sport.”

Jack: “They’re the same thing. Both are ways of trying to make meaning out of movement.”

Host:
He turned slightly now, meeting her gaze — his eyes bright, the tiredness replaced by that fierce light of nostalgia and pride that lives only in those who’ve loved something more than themselves.

Jack: “When Blake said cricket was his first love, he wasn’t talking about the game. He was talking about devotion — about the first thing that made him feel alive.”

Jeeny: “And what did it give him?”

Jack: “Purpose. Structure. That feeling you get when you lose yourself in something so completely that you almost forget you exist.”

Jeeny: “That’s dangerous.”

Jack: “That’s love.”

Host:
The wind pushed through again, stronger now, rattling the flagpole above the pavilion. Jeeny walked closer, her footsteps soft on the pitch. She crouched beside him, running her fingers lightly across the dirt-streaked crease.

Jeeny: “You talk about cricket like it’s a person.”

Jack: “It is. She’s cruel, demanding, beautiful — and she never says sorry.”

Jeeny: “Sounds like someone I know.”

Jack: “You’re not wrong.”

Host:
Their laughter broke the stillness, brief but warm, like sunlight cutting through storm clouds. For a moment, even the field seemed to smile.

Jack: “You know, I’ve played this game my whole life. The older I get, the more I realize it’s not about winning. It’s about staying. Turning up. Facing the next ball.”

Jeeny: “Even when you know it’ll hit you?”

Jack: “Especially then.”

Host:
He picked up a small stone, tossing it gently into the air, watching it fall. His eyes followed it, slow and precise.

Jack: “There’s something sacred about that, you know — standing in the middle of all that uncertainty, still choosing to play.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what makes it love — choosing to show up for something that can’t promise to love you back.”

Jack: “Yeah.” He smiled faintly. “That sounds about right.”

Host:
The sky had turned a deeper blue now, with streaks of silver cloud drifting lazily across it. The moon began to rise, pale and full, its reflection trembling faintly in the puddles near the boundary.

Jack: “You ever think we don’t choose our first loves? They just… find us.”

Jeeny: “Of course. That’s why they stay, even when everything else leaves.”

Jack: “And cricket found me. I was just a kid, barefoot, hitting bottle caps with a stick. It wasn’t ambition — it was instinct. Like breathing.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now it’s memory. Still breathes through me, even when I’m still.”

Host:
She looked at him — the way he stared at the field, like a man standing at an altar. She smiled gently.

Jeeny: “First loves never die, Jack. They just turn into rhythm. Into pulse. Into the quiet part of you that never stops moving.”

Jack: “So cricket’s not gone?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s just inside you now — waiting for the next innings.”

Host:
A long silence followed — not empty, but full. The stadium, vast and solemn, seemed to exhale with them. The world had grown still, wrapped in a peace that only comes from acknowledging what endures.

Jack stood slowly, brushing the dust from his hands. He looked at the pitch one last time, his expression soft — half smile, half prayer.

Jack: “You know, maybe Blake wasn’t being sentimental. Maybe he was just telling the truth. You never forget your first love — because it’s the one that teaches you how to keep playing.”

Jeeny: “Even after the game ends.”

Host:
The camera would pull back now — the two figures standing small against the vastness of the field, the moon above them casting silver light over the quiet, sleeping grass.

And as the scene faded into night, Yohan Blake’s words would echo softly, carried by the wind through the empty stands — not about a sport, but about the nature of passion itself:

That first loves — whether games, dreams, or people — never truly leave us.
They become the heartbeat of who we are,
the rhythm that keeps us running,
long after the world has gone still.