On New Year's eve, 2020, Jaddu barged into his spin twin's room without preamble.

"Ashley?"

"Sorry, wrong room," said Ash without looking up from the magazine he was flipping through. "There's no Ashley here."

"I can see at least one Ashley on the bed," drawled Jaddu, undeterred.

"What do you want, Jad?"

"D'you remember the Border Gavaskar series of 2013?"

Ash had to look up at that.

"Well, yes, I do, of course," he said. "Why?"

"It was the first series the two of us won for India," said Jaddu with a slightly maniacal grin.

Of course, maniacal grins were perfectly normal for Sir Ravindra Jadeja, but his dialogue was on the sentimental side, so Ash put down the magazine and beckoned him over, asking, "Are you drunk?"

"You always ask me if I'm drunk," complained Jaddu, who was not drunk.

"Well, isn't that justified, because you only get emotional when you get drunk?" said Ash defensively. "Look at that long Instagram post you gave the other day about 50 Test matches, I knew you were drunk while writing it, and I was right."

Jaddu's grin got slightly more maniacal before it slid away under Ash's deadpan expression.

"I was thinking, Ashley, don't you think this decade was our decade?"

"Our decade?" repeated Ash doubtfully.

"Belonging to us," special emphasis on us. "'Cause of the way we dominated the whole world for eight years out of the ten."

Ash paused in the act of rolling his eyes (that was just a reflex action of his when Jaddu was speaking) and pondered over his word instead.

"I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right," he admitted grudgingly. "This was our decade."

"Our decade is going to end in one hour," said Jaddu, glancing at the clock, almost wistfully. "Maybe we can stretch it for a couple more years, don't you reckon?"

Ash was quiet.

Jaddu looked at him and demanded, "Why're you looking at me like that?"

Ash shook himself and reached out for his phone, grumbling, "I wasn't. Looking at you like anything, I mean. Go call them...I'm getting the others on the call."

Jaddu knew, without Ash having to mention, that he meant Jinks and Ro—and just Jinks and Ro, no one else. Also that he was going to put just Virat, Shikh and Bhuvi on the call, no one else.

**********

"He's sleeping, Jad," said Jinks, when Jaddu had collected him and declared his intention of going to look for Rohit.

"That's a whole decade of his sleeping we've endured," retorted Jaddu, and turning a deaf ear to Jinks' vague protests (could Jinks stop being so overly considerate for a single moment?) and pulled a half-asleep Rohit bodily out of his bed and dragged him to Ash's room.

"Hello, Jad, Jinksy, Ro," cried Virat as the three of them came into the frame. "Happy ending to our decade!"

"Nice concept, that one," said Bhuvi. "Did Jaddu really come up with it on his own?"

"I did," said Jaddu defensively, before the others explained the concept to a bewildered Jinks and a droopy Rohit, who had never heard the phrase before.

"Will you wake up properly, for god's sake?" Virat yelled into the phone, getting indignant that his best friend always had to be such a sleepy idiot. "Slap him from me, Jinks!"

"And me," said Shikhar immediately.

Jinks looked shocked.

"I can't slap him," he said, turning to Rohit and shaking him gently; far too gently.

Jaddu made up for it by pushing Jinks away and shaking Rohit so hard that Rohit had to open his eyes fully, if only to splutter out his protests.

"What d'you mean by—"

Jaddu was starting to shriek with his deliberate crazy laughter, and Bhuvi caught Ash's eye and interrupted hastily.

"What's your favourite moment of our decade, Ro?" he asked good naturedly.

"When we lifted the Champions trophy," said Rohit, calming down swiftly. "Of course that was the best moment, wasn't it? For all of you?"

"Yes," said six voices in unison, even the two who had won another much bigger trophy that decade.

"Also the 2018-19 Border Gavaskar," said Ash. "It comes pretty close..."

"You unsentimental buffoons," said Jaddu. "Are all your best memories related to materialistic victories alone?"

"What did you just call us?" began Ash dangerously.

"A guardian angel, that's what I called you," said Jaddu without batting an eyelash. "Coming back to the point, I remember the cheetah walk in South Africa as a particularly nice memory..."

"You would," said Jinks crossly. "I liked the boathouse New Year party of 2015's better."

"My favourite was getting Percy uncle to meet us in the dressing room," said Virat with a very innocent look at Jinks.

"Mine too," said Rohit, with a snort of laughter. "Also the day we caught Jinks attempting to learn dancing before his wedding day."

Everyone but the victim cracked up at that, and seeing Jinks' resigned expression, Jaddu said smoothly, "Stop targeting the captain," as if he hadn't been the one who had started it.

"I remember setting the England streets on fire with Virat with our professional dancing," said Shikhar, with a gleam in his eyes.

"Oh, yes," said Virat. "Everyone stopped to watch us, remember, Shikh?"

"Everyone would stop to watch a monkey cartwheeling on the road just as well," said Ash severely.

That made Shikhar and Virat's gloating looks subside.

"My favourite was the jungle safari in New Zealand where we left Jaddu behind," said Bhuvi, not very kindly.

"You left me behind in the jungle safari?" said Jaddu, thunderstruck. "When?"

"In—in 2014, wasn't it?" said Rohit. "When you were too busy trying to impress your non-existent girlfriend," snidely. "We saw parrots on that safari," he added with nostalgia.

"Parrots?" said Jinks in disgust as everyone cracked up again.

"We saw tigers, too," said Virat.

"There are no tigers in New Zealand," Bhuvi told him, rolling his eyes.

"And I never had a non-existent girlfriend," clarified Jaddu. "So you're lying, Ro."

"I didn't even start it," said Rohit, as Jaddu shoved him so hard he almost fell of the bed. "Bhuvi," he wailed.

Bhuvi winked, safely out of Jaddu's reach, being several continents away.

"I loved the day we took the local train without tickets to visit Aarya," said Virat brightly.

"And got caught," said Jinks. "And had me bail you out of station-prison."

"Yes," said Virat, even more brightly. "Love you, Jinsky. Sending you lots of love from India."

"Ugh, Virat," said Shikhar. "Must you?"

"Not everyone is an unsentimental buffoon like you, Shikh," said Jaddu superiorly.

"New phrase," said Ash resignedly. "Unsentimental buffoon," he muttered. "Remember the time we climbed into Bhuvi's balcony and slammed the door to scare him out of his wits?"

"Ash," protested Bhuvi, who did not like being reminded of the time when he had been the punching bag for all pranks, as the others roared. "Remember when Rohit lost his wedding ring on the day of his engagement and was terrified to tell Ritika?"

"I didn't lose it," said Rohit indignantly. "Virat and Shikhar hid it."

"Jinks helped us too," wailed Virat.

Jinks threw him a quelling look.

"Remember the day we resolved never to burn firecrackers again?" said Shikhar solemnly, as Bhuvi smiled.

"Yes, and we've stuck to it," said Virat proudly.

"Remember the day Ashley got his name?" drawled Jaddu.

Amidst the chaotic laughter, Ash raised his voice and said menacingly, "Remember how Jaddu passed out in the corridor after drinking too much after the Sri Lanka series and Mahi bhai grounded him for two weeks?"

"I didn't know this," said Jinks interestedly, glancing at Jaddu with a grin.

"Don't worry, Jinks, it's just Ash's imagination," said Jaddu breezily.

"Is not," said Rohit, shoving Jaddu out of the bed and getting his own back.

Jaddu sprang back and threw himself on Rohit, who, not having foreseen the attack, yelled and banged his head against the bedstead.

"JADDU, LEAVE HIM!"

Heedless of the warning of Ash's or Jinks' or Bhuvi's, Jaddu proceeded to pummel Rohit with the nearest pillow he could find, as Virat and Shikhar cheered him on and Rohit shouted his lungs out, "Not fair, not fair, give me a pillow too! JINKS!"

"What?" said Jinks, alarmed. "Jaddu, he's just coming back from injury, I think you should let him go."

"Yes," wailed Rohit.

Jaddu finally relented and the moment he slumped down against the bed and turned his back, Rohit pushed himself up and raised his arms to attack...

...And found his arms grabbed firmly and put down by someone who could only be Ash.

"Stop this hooliganism at once," said Ash as severely as any headmaster. "And you two," he added to Virat and Shikhar, who were still laughing. "Stop encouraging them."

"Thanks for saving me from the back stabber, Ashley, didn't I tell you you're my guardian angel?" said Jaddu.

Ash rolled his eyes towards heaven as renewed yells of laughter rang in the room and from his phone.

The clock chimed 12.

"Happy new decade, you guys," said Bhuvi, grinning, the first one to realize.

Everyone echoed it after him, having caught on, and Jinks said with a sigh, "The end of our decade."

"The end of our first decade." Jaddu corrected him with rare solemnity. "Because 'us' is permanent, isn't it?"

As the silence was getting too thick with emotion, the door swung open and Jassi's voice came, "Happy new year! We have Harry and Yuzi and Mahi bhai on video call, but all the others' numbers are busy..."

They turned and saw Jassi, Kuldeep, Rahul and Mayank coming in, the former holding up his phone.

"The others are here," said Rohit in an odd voice. "Happy new year, Jass—" Rohit ensured he wished Jassi first, because the kid had gotten super possessive lately.

"WHY DID YOU WISH HIM FIRST, RO?" wailed a familiar voice from Jassi's phone.

"Merge the two calls, Ash, and Harry, stop howling," said Mahi bhai in a tone that was both very familiar and very dear.

Ash obliged, and their video call lasted two hours and fifty-nine minutes, because all the thousands of miles across the globe could not separate a dozen hearts that were meant to beat together.