Every April, young cricketers from small towns across India enter the world of IPL — five-star hotels, foreign coaches, franchise millions, parties they would have never imagined. This series tells their stories, in their words, of what that crossing feels like.When Ishwar Pandey checked into his hotel room for Pune Warriors in 2013, the first thing he saw was the bathtub. “Pehle jankari yeh le gayi, ke hai kya yeh cheez? I just didn’t know what it was. Do I have to bathe in it or sit in it? TV pe dekha toh tha but how do I store water in it?” He asked someone. Then came the air-conditioning. He didn’t know how to work the buttons. He had to call again. “Coming from Rewa, I had never stayed in such rooms in my life. It feels like we are in heaven. Ghanti bajao and sab hazir.”Pandey, a lanky fast bowler from a lower-middle-class family in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, had played domestic cricket and stayed in three-star hotels. He had travelled with the state team, shared rooms, managed without much. “In domestic cricket, there are no security guards, no AC bus sometimes. No one is watching. Even if you are going out, nobody cares.” The bathtub in the five-star team hotel puzzled Ishwar. “I just didn’t know what it was. Do I have to bathe in it or sit in it?” (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)The IPL was a different country. His own room. A bathtub. A lobby he couldn’t navigate. Lifts that went to floors he didn’t recognise. “You don’t understand how the hotel functions. It takes some time. It is difficult for a new player who comes from a small village.”The beds were different. The food was different. The parties after matches were different.“It’s like a fairy tale. Sab apsarein-apsarein dekh rahi hai. It’s a big distraction. A lot of people get distracted. Those who haven’t seen it, think this is life. They don’t know where their career is going and where they’re going.” Loud music in a dark hotel room, the glamour everywhere, the money visible in everything. “Whenever any senior player used to warn, sabko lagta hai, yeh khud toh party kar raha hai aur mujhe mana kar raha hai.” Now, looking back, he admits it was exactly the distraction the seniors said it was.***The dressing room was its own puzzle. “Kahan-kahan dekhe,” he says. Players who had watched their heroes on television were now sitting next to them. The awe took time to fade. Players from villages took longer than players from cities. Nobody talked about this. “The chaka-chaund hits you. The boys get nervous because they have never seen anything like this. But your big players, your teammates, they have seen it all. They try to help.”The hardest part was language.Story continues below this ad“There comes a phase where you get scared. Whether I am saying the right thing or wrong. Language is a problem. Whenever you go with a foreigner, you are speaking from your side. But you can’t explain whether he is understanding or not.” Pandey pauses. “For example, when Alan Donald was in Pune, I couldn’t speak to him freely. I tried to explain it to him, but the sentence was not clear. He used to feel that I couldn’t explain it to him. I took help of others.” Coming from Rewa in MP, Ishwar wasn’t comfortable with English. “I wanted to speak to Allan Donald, but my sentences were not clear.” (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)When the team decided a player had to give a speech in a team meeting, Pandey says, “pasina nikal aata hai.”A fast bowler who could send down a delivery at 135 kmph, sweating at the thought of standing up in a room full of teammates and speaking in English. The ball he could control. The words he couldn’t.***The franchises, Pandey says, understood more than the state associations ever did. They monitored fitness year-round, planned body charts, gave players trainers, provided medical support. When Kuldeep Sen got injured, Rajasthan Royals ensured he was paid and his treatment was covered. “Franchise take care of players like their son-in-law. If a player is going through a bad phase, they stood by the player. Sometimes state associations lack that quality.”Story continues below this adThe relationship ran deeper than contracts. Players from smaller towns, without networks or connections, found in the franchise a support system that domestic cricket had never offered. The franchise called. The franchise checked. The state association, often, didn’t.But the world the franchise offered was the same world that could swallow you. The glamour and the support came in the same package. The bathtub and the apsarein were in the same hotel.***Pandey was part of the Indian squad but never got to play for India. He played for Pune Warriors, Chennai Super Kings, and Rising Pune Supergiants.Back in Rewa, things changed. No cricketer from there had played for the national team before him. People came to meet him, get photos, shake hands. “They make you feel like you’re a very special person.” Builders arrived with brochures, trying to coax him into investing in discounted properties in upcoming townships. Local politicians visited. Strangers made requests he didn’t know how to handle. “Many don’t know me by face but the whole town thinks that there is an India cricketer from this place and they can get anything done through me.”Story continues below this ad After the IPL, Ishwar Pandey became famous. Builders came with brochures and tried to convince him that he should invest in their projects. (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)In Rewa, he was the man who had made it. In the IPL hotel rooms, he was still the boy figuring out the buttons. He has watched the IPL from inside — watched boys arrive from towns like his and try to make sense of a world that was built for people who already knew what a bathtub was for. Every auction cycle brings a new batch. The towns change — Rewa, Raipur, Ranchi, some village in Uttar Pradesh nobody has heard of — but the bewilderment is the same.“The players have to keep in mind that their focus should be on the game,” Pandey says. “If we don’t focus on the game, we won’t get what we are getting. We are there in the team because of our cricket.” He pauses. “I didn’t understand this before. I used to think that cricket khel raha hoon, toh le hi lenge. But that is not the case.”He knows now. The bathtub, he figured out eventually. The rest took longer. And every April, a new boy from a new small town checks into a new hotel room and sees, for the first time, a bathtub he doesn’t know how to use.