A man sold 16 Team India jerseys in an hour outside the Eden Gardens on Saturday, more than what he sells in an entire day for an IPL match.
A college girl came all the way from Barrackpore to the Eden Gardens to give a gift to her favourite player.
At least 12 people approached this reporter within 30 minutes along a 50m-stretch near the Mohammedan Sporting Club tent in the Maidan with one query: “Akta ticket hobe (Do you have a ticket)?”
Had Ravi Shastri been on commentary outside Eden on Saturday, he would have said: “The atmosphere is electric.’’
Shastri is famous for such quips. But if there was ever a visual translation of what that phrase means, Goshtha Pal Sarani and Red Road provided a glimpse on Saturday, on the eve of India’s clash with South Africa.
Schoolchildren, homemakers, men taking time out from office, everyone was desperate for a ticket and called out to anyone they thought could help them get a passage to Eden.
It is this frenzy that led two young men from Australia to start a World Cup trip from Kolkata.
Marcus Loane and Tejus Puttaswamy, friends in Canberra, landed in Kolkata on Friday. On Saturday morning, they were at the Maidan to collect the online tickets they had bought.
“We expected nothing less. We will be travelling to some other venues to watch the matches, including the final in Ahmedabad. But both of us wanted to start the trip from Kolkata. The Eden Gardens looks scintillating on TV, especially under the
lights. We are very excited about the Eden experience,” said Loane, an engineer in Canberra.
Puttaswamy and Loane have played cricket growing up. The two have been to another iconic stadium, the Sydney Cricket Ground, more than once.
“But the Eden vibe is different. The crowd is so passionate. The Eden roar for a single taken by Virat Kohli is louder than what SCG can do for a Steve Smith century,” said Puttaswamy, who works with an Australian airline. He supports Australia unless they play India.
Even Maidan veterans said they had not seen such craze for a 50-over match in a long, long time.
The closest would be seven years ago. That was also the last time India played a World Cup match at the Eden. It was against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup on March 19, 2016.
The IPL has its own fan base. But over the years, the craze has somewhat dipped. The Eden in the run-up to Sunday’s match looked like the Eden of lore.
The fans who came to collect online tickets bought earlier could reel out stats and technicalities like seasoned pros.
“I was in the stadium for the India-Pakistan match in the 2016 World Cup. Pakistan had set a modest target but the chase was tricky. Kohli played a brilliant knock under pressure. I hope he plays another gem tomorrow,” Chinmoy Biswas, a Dum Dum resident, told this newspaper. The 46-year-old teacher had come to collect the tickets he bought online.
Team India faithful stood outside the stadium for hours doing nothing but waiting for a glimpse of Rohit Sharma and his men. The crowd count kept rising as the clock ticked. At one point, there were so many people outside the stadium that the road was choked.
Cops swung into action around 5.10pm, signalling that the time had come. Around that time, at least 1,000 people had gathered on the road outside (Gostha Pal Sarani). A group of mounted police dispersed the crowd in front of the gates.
The team bus arrived around 5.20pm. The decibel shot past the roof as Kohli got off and walked into the stadium. Sharma, Shubman Gill and Mohammed Shami
also got some of the loudest cheers.
Baishali Karmakar, a second-year student at Derozio Memorial College, came from Barrackpore on a local train, Metro and then by foot — with one wish. She had a gift for Gill.
She had prepared a scrapbook with a collage of Gill’s pictures on one side and a painting of the star batter on the other side.
“I could not give it to him because of the police charge. I don’t even have a ticket for tomorrow’s game. I had come just for this moment,” a seething Karmakar told The Telegraph.
Not surprisingly, Kohli led the T-shirt sale as well. Subhajit Das, from New Barrackpore, had sold 16 blue Team India jerseys in an hour outside the Eden Gardens. “Before a KKR match in the IPL, I barely sell a dozen in a whole day,” he said.
Of the 16 shirts he sold, 10 had Kohli’s name written on the back. That was the trend at the other “stalls” as well. Kohli was followed by Sharma and Gill.
The Telegraph counted at least 30 stalls, selling soft drinks, lemonade, ice creams, fruits and jerseys, outside the Mohammedan Sporting tent alone. Before an IPL match, the number is not even 10.
The difference in the number of stalls was a pointer to the mass frenzy that the table toppers’ clash has ignited.