There is something amiss with Indian cricket’s equivalent of paradise. The Eden Gardens will not get its showpiece game, India versus England, because the arena was not likely to be ready in time for the marque event. What a loss of face this is.
When full, as it used to be in the good old days when Test matches were supreme and the cricket came in the magnificent Christmas-New Year period to Kolkata, Eden Gardens would be at its splendid best.
When all of India always seems like a work in progress can the CAB be faulted for letting its grand piece of real estate resemble a construction site at inspection time? Like things always fall in place in the eleventh hour, as they always tend to do in big fat Indian weddings, we could have still had a fine contest on the famous baize-like green of the Eden Gardens just across the Maidan from the mighty Victoria Memorial. The ICC would not demur.
It is a matter of perception. We Indians know that work will always go on till the last minute and apparent lack of advance preparedness would not worry us per se. But convincing the federation of being ready in time when there are still all kinds of building equipment standing by on the day of the deadline is not so easy.
And Indian cricket cannot play the old record by which it could blame a ‘white’ ICC since Sharad Pawar heads it and the CEO Haroon Lorgat of South Africa, with his roots here, is seen as a distinct India friend.
The catch is, perhaps, politics, of which there is far too much in cricket; but sadly there is too little cricket in politics. Pawar, who was kept waiting for a few months to become president of the BCCI by Jagmohan Dalmiya’s casting vote in favour of Ranbir Singh, was hardly likely to help his old adversary. It does appear old rivalries may have resurfaced, especially since Mr Pawar maintained silence on the Eden Gardens match issue from the moment ICC inspection team decided enough was enough.
In cricketing terms, it will be a pity if the big match is not played at Eden. The ground’s finest moment came when it was the grand host of the first World Cup outside of Lord’s, back in 1987.
Think of the match and the thought that comes back first is the silly reverse sweep Mike Gatting played to ruin England’s chase. Back then the stroke was seen as childish in serious cricket even though the likes of Asif Iqbal had played it years before.
Allan Border’s men were too good not to cash in on the opportunity and they won the World Cup by its narrowest margin in terms of runs. An Australian cricket revival was thus achieved, which was to run for years and perhaps culminated in the hat-trick of triumphs in the World Cup from 1999 to 2007.
Two teams other than India may have been in that final but there was a near full house and a memorable day’s cricket was watched by a splendidly behaved crowd.
The worst of Eden, however, came in the infamous semifinal of 1996 when India came a cropper in the chase after Sachin Tendulkar’s half century.
Vinod Kambli was in tears but his team, hopelessly behind on a pitch that did not last the day, were nowhere near getting home when Clive Lloyd awarded the match to Sri Lanka. Paradise became hell in a trice, but then that’s the nature of the game.
It’s a pity though that the cricket lovers of Kolkata are being denied their due thus this time.