Bengal will play a Ranji final at Eden Gardens after almost 33 years.
The excitement around the final, which starts on Thursday, is something rare in domestic cricket. Eden’s famed buzz was back, a walk around on match-eve suggested.
LED chains were being set up on the giant facade on Wednesday afternoon. The passage leading to the lobby was decked out with artificial flowers. Slightly tacky but colourful from a distance. A superviser kept barking at a handful of workers, asking them to hurry up. Cricket administrators, past and present, kept coming in and going out.
At the centre stage of the grand finale of Indian domestic cricket are names that people unfamiliar with Bengal cricket will struggle to recall. On Wednesday, names like Abhimanyu Easwaran, Anustup Majumdar, Sudip Gharami and Mukesh Kumar were doing the rounds at different corners of the stadium.
“I don’t remember the last time a domestic match had generated this kind of interest,” said Arya Kishor Chatterjee, 81, a former cricket administrator.
Chatterjee, a retired cop, was a regular at the Eden until the pandemic. On Wednesday, he was back again, to have a “first-hand sense of the excitement” and collect passes for the final.
Amalendu Biswas, the current vice-president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, was the manager of the Bengal team that lost in the final in 2020 against Saurashtra, the same opponent in this year’s final.
“It was a tight contest. When we lost, I cried inconsolably. This time, I want to shed tears of joy,” Biswas told The Telegraph.
Groundsmen prepare the pitch
The organisers are expecting over 10,000 people on Day One. The number is tipped to go up over the weekend if the match lives up to expectations.
Four blocks, B, C, L and K, will be opened for spectators on match days. Passes are being issued for the two tiers of the Club House, said Biswas.
Former captains of Bengal and the team members of the 1990 squad, which had won the last final at Eden Gardens against Delhi, will be among the guests at the final.
Thirty-three years ago, a Bengal team led by Sambaran Banerjee beat Delhi by run quotient.
Santanu Mitra, chairman of the stadium committee of the CAB, said the hype around the upcoming final was “never before”.
“In 1990, cricket was not as popular in Bengal as it is now. There were far fewer coaching camps. Cricket was still very much a seasonal affair, with camps starting after Lakshmi Puja and wrapping up in April. We must not also forget that the 1990 final was the debut of a certain Sourav Ganguly, who has been instrumental in popularising cricket in Bengal,” said Mitra.
His father, Birendra Nath Mitra, is one of the longest-serving cricket administrators in Bengal. The 89-year-old is “very excited” about the final and wants to see it from the stands.
If octogenarian were kicked, teenagers were not to be left behind.
A bunch of kids were at the stands on Wednesday afternoon, watching groundsmen tend to the lush green outfield. They had come for a biometric test for an Under-15 tournament organised by the CAB.
A view from the stands
“I want to watch the match from ball one,” said Yash Sharma, 13, a left-arm medium pacer who plays for a club in Howrah. He was part of a group of teenagers who had come with their parents.
Somnath Roy and Subhronil Pakrashi, two CAB-empanelled umpires, had come to the ground to collect passes for the final. They came after officiating a second-division match.
“While officiating, we have to be neutral and poised. Tomorrow, we want to scream for Bengal,” said Roy, 35.
Ranadeep Moitra, strength and conditioning coach, will be in the stands, too. More than one member of the current Bengal squad train with Moitra, who was an opening batsman for the state before an injury forced him to leave cricket.
“I make it a point not to miss Bengal’s matches. There is a big emotional connect with the team. Ruku (Anustup Majumdar) trains at my gym. His commitment to fitness is phenomenal,” said Moitra.
Majumdar, 38, is the mainstay of the Bengal batting line-up, performing consistently when the chips are down.
Moitra said Bengal’s pace battery was the best in India. “Given a green top, they can be lethal. But the batsmen have to stand up and give them runs to play with,” he said.
Sambaran Banerjee was the captain the last time Bengal won the Ranji crown. But for many old-timers, the fighting spirit in that team was brought in by a “Delhi guy” called Arun Lal.
When this newspaper called Lal on Wednesday, the 64-year-old said he was “overjoyed”.
“The Bengal team has been good enough to win the title for the past three-four years. Bengal is one of the top teams in the country in every format of the game,” said Lal, who coached Bengal from 2018 to 2022, a period that saw the team play one final and one semi-final.
Lal’s fighting spirit is now a part of this team’s DNA.