Bonyera boney sundar, shishura matrikrorey

Ar Eden sundar jonotay bhorey.

(The wild are beautiful in the wild and babies in mothers’ laps/ And Eden is beautiful when filled with people).

The truth of the cricket-specific part of the saying, added with apologies to Sanjeeb Chandra Chattopadhyay, the 19th century author of the travelogue Palamou, would be apparent to none more than Sourav Ganguly. Six years ago, when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had gifted Sachin Tendulkar’s penultimate Test match to Calcutta, the Little Master’s opening partner in One Dayers had appealed to cricket buffs in his hometown to fill up the stands. But that had not happened. Sachin had played before half-empty stands with the crowd numbering less than 30,000. That may be enough to fill many other stadia around the world but ill behoves Eden Gardens, where the official capacity is 66,349.

So in the first Test that was played at Eden after Ganguly was anointed BCCI president, he has made sure that the stands are full, giving people enough reason to leave the comfort of live coverage in their drawing rooms or the convenience of desktop commentary. Walking into the hallowed ground for the India-Bangladesh tie, and be greeted by the once-familiar roar, one could not but thank Dada for playing all his marketing cards right.

If Day 1, with the allure of attractions aplenty lined up on the sidelines, hosted a capacity crowd, Day 2 that began with the reigning king of cricket, Virat Kohli, at the crease, notched up 42,697 (as announced on the giant screen in the afternoon). No wonder Sourav would tweet about it like a proud patriarch. But it was Day 3 that proved the true mettle of the hallowed ground. Yes, it was Sunday. But Bangladesh was six wickets down with an 89-run deficit to overcome to make India bat again. And with media reports hinting at retired hurt batsman Mahmudullah’s hamstring injury being more serious than it had appeared on the field the evening before, they were effectively seven down, with just Mushfiqur Rahim left holding up one end with tail-enders for company. The only debate was how many overs the match would last. Yet over 30,000 people turned up to watch India wrap up the match, and the series, which they did in 47 minutes flat. That’s passion for you!

And that’s possibly why Kohli and his men did the victory lap. The world’s No. 1 ranked Test team rightly showed little effusion in winning the mismatched contest by an innings and 46 runs but reached out to the enthusiastic fans in the stands who had stayed back, waving and cheering, even after Ishant Sharma had walked back with the Man of Match and the Man of the Series cheques, concluding the official match schedule.

Rewind to Day 1

Being in the stands on the first day was all about being wide-eyed at the novelties introduced. The giant electronic scoreboard had an all-pink border; the black manual scoreboard over D1 block had been replaced by an elegant white one, on which the player names appeared in pink letters; a pink-and-yellow wreath had been placed around the Eden bell, which was to be rung by a celebrity for the action to unfold every day; the ball boys were in pink T-shirts and caps; and, of course, there was the mascot Pinku who made an appearance now and then.

And above all, the ball was pink. If anyone were to ask where this correspondent was seated, the answer to give in the context of the match would be where Rohit Sharma, who incidentally had debuted in Sachin’s final Eden Test, had hit the first pink-ball six in India’s international cricket history. It was also where Taijul Islam leapt like an acrobat on a trampoline to cut short the Indian captain’s triple-figure score — the first one against India’s name in a Day-Night Test. But that was on the second day.

Day 1 was also about nostalgia — right from the brochure handed out at the gates, tracing India-Bangladesh bilateral Test history, to the sight of yesteryear stars being taken around in golf carts, including Eden favourites like Mohd. Azharuddin and heroes of very very special victories like V.V.S. Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Harbhajan Singh, with the god of cricket leading in the first cart. The roars of “Saachin Saachin” turned the clock back in time. And there was Runa Laila belting out the two songs that every middle-aged Calcuttan can sing, in or out of tune — Bondhu teen din tor baritey jailam and Sadher lau. Oh yes, she is a Bangladeshi national but back in the day, we had embraced these songs — and her — as our own.

The day also showed how Eden can entertain itself without the loud, mechanical prodding of disc jockeys, as is the practice in the Indian Premier League matches. The floodlights were on, the sun was setting over BN Dutt Stand, India had just come out to bat. A cluster of cellphones came aglow in a corner of K Block. Instantly and wordlessly, it caught on as mobiles switched to the torch mode across the ground, like thousands of fireflies alighting. It was a breathtaking sight that melted into the dusk as spontaneously as it had materialised.

By then, it was completely dark and the pink helium ball afloat high over the small screen to the west suddenly became prominent as did the pink SG ball on the field. If the galleries wore pink LED stripes on the fences, the clubhouse had a whole illumination show going over the press box at the top — in a looped sequence of pink-red-green-blue-white-yellow-pink.

Soon another show would start, for Virat Kohli would arrive on the crease. A straight drive off Ebadat Hossain taking him to 24, a wristy on-drive off Taijul to reach 42, a pull again off Ebadat to the midwicket fence to register his 50, an extra cover drive off Al-Amin to reach 56… The message was clear. Kohli, the magician with the willow wand, does not discriminate against colour (of the ball).

The new manual scoreboard (Sudeshna Banerjee)

Guests galore

There were scores of Bangladeshis who had crossed the border (legally) to witness the historic occasion. But such was the demoralising effect of the demolition effected by India’s speedsters that they did not stay for long. Friends Mohd Imran Hossain and Mustafa Kamal had come from Mirpur to watch the second day’s play. They had not got tickets on Day 1 but faced another problem on Day 2 when they did. “We could not find a single Bangladesh flag on sale. After a lot of search, we got these jerseys,” they said. Supporters of Comilla Victorians in the Bangladesh Premier League, they bitterly missed their club star Tamim Iqbal, who has opted out of the tour, and veteran all-rounder Shakib al Hasan, who is serving an International Cricket Council ban. “We love Kohli’s batting as long as it is not against Bangladesh,” they said sheepishly as he raced to his century.

With wickets in the Bangladesh second innings falling like nine pins — four were back in the pavilion in the first seven overs faced with yet another fiery spell in tandem from Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav — they preferred New Market to the new ball attack. But some like Nusrat Jahan Putul turned up even on the last day. The Dhaka lady is here for medical treatment and did not want to miss seeing her home team being part of history. “Match harsi kintu eto bhalobasha paisi ekhane je mon bhore gyase (we lost the match but I got so much love here that my heart is full),” she gushed on her way out at the end of the match.

Bowled by a hostile pace attack. Bowled over by hospitable hosts. That is likely to be Bangladesh’s match report, writ in pink.