After a heartbreaking experience during the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup final in Ahmedabad last November, My Kolkata’s eyewitness returned to his favourite ground, the Eden Gardens, for a couple of IPL cliffhangers this April. Within a span of five days, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) hosted two royal visitors, first from Rajasthan on April 16 and then from Bengaluru five days later. On both occasions, the match went down to the very last ball, although the Knights and your eyewitness went through contrasting emotions.
Unlike my visits to Eden before, the last couple of matches saw me seated higher up in the stands. Though technically farther from the action, I got a clearer view because of my vision being unimpeded by fencing. For the evening game against the Rajasthan Royals (RR), my vantage point was right above long-on, while for the afternoon encounter against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), I was seated in a shedless stand over cover.
Eden goes wild for Narine and cannot stop cheering for Kohli
Sunil Narine celebrating his maiden IPL hundred against RR TT Archives
I was a neutral during the KKR-RR game, something that seems to make for my happiest Eden experiences (no fandom without pain, you know). With a gentle breeze blowing across the ground for much of the match, I got to take in a run-fest, with 447 runs scored across 40 overs. Even though RR broke their own record for the highest run-chase in an IPL match at Eden, the moment of the evening for me was when Sunil Narine notched up his maiden IPL century. I was there last year when Virat Kohli had scored his record-equalling 49th ODI hundred. Not even then had the Eden crowd gone this wild, which partly stemmed from the sheer wonder of seeing Narine — still perceived by most as a bowler who can be a pinch-hitter — register three figures.
Fast forward to the RCB match and Eden went berserk once more, this time at a breathtaking catch by Cameron Green to get rid of Angkrish Raghuvanshi. The sight of Green leaping into the air in that impossible-to-ignore green and blue kit of RCB made a strong impression on me, too, whose allegiance was very much with the away team on Sunday.
Virat Kohli did not particularly enjoy his time at Eden on Sunday TT Archives
However, in terms of sustained applause for an entire innings, nothing matched up to Eden’s love for Kohli. If you closed your eyes and listened carefully, you could tell where Kohli was fielding in the scorching heat of Kolkata just by hearing the crowd go “Kohli…Kohli” every time he faced them in between deliveries. But RCB’s main man, who teased opening the bowling at the start of the day, left Eden with a sour taste in his mouth, having been dismissed off a full toss that many argued was a no-ball (for height). What went missing on TV screens, though, was Kohli remonstrating to the umpires that he was not ready to face the ball (from Harshit Rana) as he got distracted by the sightscreen. The reason for the distraction? The green reflection near the sight screen stemming from the giant screens (on each side of the stadium) showing close-ups of the RCB batters right until Rana was midway through his run-up. In other words, Kohli got taken in by the brightness of his own kit. Talk about being self-destructive!
Props to KKR for learning from their mistakes
Andre Russell proved to be KKR’s match-winner against RCB TT Archives
One of my highlights during the KKR-RR match was to briefly turn seer as I correctly predicted (to my colleague sitting next to me) that Shreyas Iyer was going to hit a six and get out in the same over against Yuzvendra Chahal. Iyer’s dismissal led to the arrival of Andre Russell, who gets a welcome at Eden that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would be proud of in a WWE arena. Not least due to the Eden DJ, whose superhuman lungs never tire of pumping up the crowd (“I say Muscle, you say Russell!”).
Speaking of the crowd, Eden was far more divided during the RCB match than during the RR one. In fact, I spotted more CSK, RCB (myself included) and MI jerseys during the RR match than I did of RR ones. But against RCB, barring the occasional “Dhoni 7” in yellow, there seemed to be a 60-40 distribution at Eden between KKR and RCB fans. Even as the tension ratcheted up against RR, with Jos Buttler going all guns blazing, the Eden crowd remained steady, even sedate. Nothing like when Will Jacks and Rajat Patidar were threatening to make it back-to-back home defeats for KKR, as the RCB fans at Eden were having a ball! Even the KKR loyalists seemed far more aggressive on Sunday. There were 15 rounds of Mexican waves against RR (yes, I counted!), but there was no time to indulge in such shenanigans with RCB in town. Something about RCB just gets the KKR fan juices flowing! As a hopeless RCB supporter myself, I played my part, chanting “24 crores” at Mitchell Starc as Kohli effortlessly hit him for a six with a drive-cum-flick, only to be shown my place by a KKR fan next to me once RCB did the most RCB thing imaginable and lost a flurry of wickets.
Samsubdin Mondal, who travels from Sonarpur to watch every KKR match at Eden Debrup Chaudhuri
A slightly less hostile fan deserves the award for best-dressed person at Eden over the past week. Draped in KKR flags with a ridiculously large hat to boot, Samsubdin Mondal, 44, comes to every Eden game from Sonarpur in South 24-Parganas, travelling for hours, not unlike this KKR superfan. “KKR will blow RCB away,” forecast Mondal. In the end, it was the fans who got blown away by how close the match was. Unlike KKR-RR, where the second innings was a tale of two halves with KKR dominating the first and Buttler the second, the KKR-RCB match swung like a pendulum, with Karn Sharma’s sixes in the last over almost taking RCB over the line. Maybe RCB needed a Buttler in their own ranks, someone who could absorb the pressure of the required run rate and back himself to finish things off in the last over. Dinesh Karthik felt like he would be just the man to do so, before he went for a glory shot at the end of the penultimate over and headed back to the pavilion.
Props to KKR for learning from their mistakes against RR and owning the crunch moments against RCB. Especially to Russell, whose solitary over against RR went for 17, but who was man of the match against RCB thanks to his three wickets at the expense of just 25 runs. KKR sceptics might argue it was just the law of averages, something that never seems to average out when it comes to RCB! Having returned home content after a treat of a game last Tuesday, I silently cursed every RCB player (barring Kohli, of course) before drowning my sorrows in some tipple on Sunday.
As I nurse my RCB-shaped wounds for the umpteenth time, I am also relieved to know that I will be a neutral again on my next visit to Eden. By which time KKR may well have booked a playoff spot even as RCB consolidate their place at the bottom of the table.
