The charm of green and pink
In anticipation of watching history unfold at Eden Gardens
It’s here. In a few hours, maybe minutes if you are reading this post-noon on Friday, the 22nd of November 2019, Virat Kohli and Mominul Haque will march out in blazers to write the first lines on the newest page of Indian cricket history, and I’ll be watching from the stands.
I remember when I first visited a stadium. On a misty winter morning in Delhi, Australia were playing India in a tri-series final. I have grown up around sports, and by the age of seven, fascination had turned into an obsession. If there was a game to be watched, a majority of my family would be in the vicinity of the television. The nervousness, anticipation, and excitement around the day of the final had been building inside me for weeks. More than two decades have passed since, so most of the minute memories have faded, but the feeling of climbing up the stairs of Ferozeshah Kotla and seeing the lush green of a stadium for the first time has fortunately not left me yet. It was a sight so overwhelming I, all these years and many, many stadium visits later, still struggle to convey properly with words.
Like many of my generation, I too harboured a dream to play cricket or football for India. A lot of that fantasy had to do with the glory of a sportsman - the walk from the dressing room onto the grass, thousands of fans willing to stand for hours and sacrifice their throats just to watch you do your thing. For me, there couldn’t be a holier profession than playing a sport. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why my sports-crazy family would want me to become an engineer. My delusions about my athletic abilities have since subsided and I understand the family better, but thankfully, the charm for watching live sport has transcended time and career choices. Every time I walk up the steps of a stadium, even if it’s an indoor futsal court (thanks, Ronaldinho), I feel the proverbial butterflies flutter within.
There isn’t a stadium in India quite like the Eden Gardens. The lush, carpet-like outfield, a history of glorious highs and terrible lows, and the knowledge that, not too long ago, it used to accommodate a hundred thousand fans. Many cricketers who have played here, and many fans who have walked its steps, rightly speak of it as a colosseum, a monument more than a stadium. This November, when I booked my flights to Calcutta, Sourav Ganguly was still the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal. The test match against Bangladesh was a good chance for another pilgrimage to Eden. If luck strikes, I could catch a Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma masterclass, or a fiery new-ball spell by the trio of Shami, Ishant, and Umesh. In either case, all I hoped for was a good two days of test cricket and a half-decent crowd. Both are wishes I have from just about any test match I watch live.
Sourav Ganguly is now the president of the BCCI, and the Eden test has been transformed into a historic event. It now represents floodlights, pink balls, and a much-needed tempo change for test cricket in India. Over the last week, Sourav has stretched every sinew to make the match a mammoth occasion. I hear Calcutta - I will never call it Kolkata on text - has practically turned pink with neon lights splashed across many of the city’s major tourist attractions. There are new murals on the walls around the stadium and giant cricket balls - pink, of course - float in the air. Dignitaries from both countries are expected to be in attendance and Ganguly has personally announced special felicitation ceremonies for many ex-cricketers and athletes.
While some of it may sound gimmicky, and I will admit I’ve been feeling it too, these formalities can only happen in the gaps between the cricket. In six of the seven hours between 1 pm and 8 pm on Friday, there will be a bowler bowling the pink ball to a batsman and a near-70000 strong crowd standing, clapping, and shouting. I can live with that.
The prospect of history being written in front of my eyes excites me the most. I have long wondered what it must’ve been like to watch Muhammed Ali beat Joe Frazier, India win their first cricket World Cup, or Phelps win his eighth gold medal in Beijing. When I walk up the stairs of Eden Gardens on Friday, I will know that test cricket in India will never be the same. I never thought that my excitement for watching the Australia-India final in 1998 could be topped, but I think it may just have been.
Over to you, Sourav.