Eden...the name evokes a feeling of tranquility, green palms swaying gently in the breeze and a sense of contentment...none of these were in display when I landed at the Eden the morning of the day after the day of Valentine to witness the second test match between India and South Africa.
A stunning bowling performance from Dale Steyn and a work-over from Morne Morkel had the famed Indian batting line up collapse to a rare home innings defeat (funny but all three innings defeats in the past couple of decades have come at the hands of the Proteas) in front of empty stands in Nagpur but the Indian bowlers stuck back after two barren sessions on day 1 of the test to leave India in - on paper possessing the finest batting talent on the planet - a significantly better position. As I was taking my seat, India had taken the last wicket and Sehwag and Gambhir were about to commence. What transpired in the next 4 hours was amongst the most skillful batting one could hope to see. The same bowlers who has so terrorized the Indian line up were shown up as ordinary, the ball fled to the boundary with astonishing regularity and once Sachin and Sehwag came on together, it was a sight for the Gods. One was perfection personified, all technique, head still, hitting the ball with the full face of the bat and the other, all bristling aggression, skillful without being a slave to technique.
The Eden is an amazing place to watch cricket, you probably get better views in Chepauk or Lords or in Sydney - being smaller and perhaps better oriented grounds - but the sheer joi de vivre of the Eden crowd makes up for everything.The crowd is very eclectic, diverse, extremely knowledgeable & extremely friendly...in the days when I was a student in Calcutta and a regular to the Eden during test matches, serious bonding would happen over the five days of the test match. The sense of humor is something unique to Calcutta and the noise, corwds, discomfort and pollution does nothing to diminish the wise cracks that constantly emanate from the crowds much like the Sehwag cuts that punctuate the square boundary with metronomic regularity.
I was entering the Eden after more than a decade and half & more than half of the Eden was under renovation with the seating capacity considerably reduced but the feeling of nostalgia was incredible. I could almost 'see' Binny bowling from the High Court end getting rid of 3 quick Pakistan wickets late on the fourth day trying to set India to an improbable victory with us kids desperately shouting ourselves hoarse in an ultimately futile task in '86, I could almost visualize the bat flying out of a hopping Gavaskar's bat from a Marshall flier in '83 stunning a full house crowd and a lean & not mean Azhar elegantly square driving with a late minute flick of his wrists a Richard Ellison outswinger to the square cover boundary in '84. Beautiful memories and add the memories of actually playing on the hallowed turf - a turf where India's perhaps greatest victory was won - in 2001 against a mighty Australian side.
It was heartening to note that the crowds still throng the Eden for a test match at a time when matches are being played in empty grounds in the rest of the country, the sense of humor is intact (well, the language has changed from almost pure Bengali in my school days to a mixture of Hindi, English & Bengali now but which does nothing to diminish the spontaneous humor), the crowds are perhaps even more of a diverse set now with the yuppie crowd in significant numbers & the oranges are still on sale at the entrance to Gate 11. Brilliant, some things dont change and hopefully they never should.
The crowd, the pitch, the ground, the tradition of Eden - all beggar one question - why are so few test matches being played at the traditional Test Match grounds in India? Why doesn't the BCCI decide on a set of cities for test matches - Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi & Kanpur as cities which will host at least one Test match a year & allocate the other tests to the non-traditional centers like Nagpur and Mohali? I am sure Sachin wont have felt very happy crossing Lara's record in front of an empty Mohali stadium nor would Dale relished bowling in front of blue plastic seats at the Jamatha in Nagpur - nothing drives a sportsman more than a bunch of vociferous spectators and when the crowd gets going at the Eden, there is no more exhilarating sight in Cricket.
Ask Vishwanath and the ovation he got after a magnificent 97 in '75-75 against a rampant Andy Roberts or Tiger when he was clapped off the field with his bold moves early on the final morning to win the test match against the finest battery of fast bowlers after being roundly booed for the same tactics which didnt yield any results for an hour or more. Ask my father who still nostalgically recounts this test match for me.
