What a match!

I finally managed to achieve what I have been planning for a long time now… watch a match at Eden – the mecca of cricket! For the ongoing India – Sri Lanka one day series, Dad somehow managed to get 2 tickets…given that I had office that day, he decided to accompany my kid bro for the 1^st half, with me replacing him in the 2nd half...

The day started with my boss announcing to everyone that he was in a very bad mood. Reason – for the 1^st time, he didn’t have a ticket for the match! Oh o I thought.. wrong time to disclose that I was going to Edens. However, once he came to know I had passes, he became more excited than me and was perfectly fine with allowing me to go to watch the 1^st innings as well J this reminded me of the IPL match between KKR & Mumbai Indians where Manish allowed us to run away from office to watch the match!

Tracking the score on cricinfo, I was aghast to see Sri Lanka run away to 315. Anyways, with the incentive of being at Eden Gardens and watching Sehwag / Sachin play, I entered the stadium to watch the 2^nd innings. My brother, who had been sitting through the 1^st innings, had by then, stocked the plastic water packets (water bottles were banned inside the ground) and even managed to patao a man sitting next to us to use his binoculars!

Sehwag & Sachin entered the field to a rapturous welcome. The 1^st boundary from Sehwag’s blade had everyone up & shouting. Sitting near me were 2 gentlemen who were obviously Eden veterans. They were perfectly content to just sit and watch the proceedings. They continuously kept their commentary going, but otherwise, never did they once get up and cheer a boundary or a shot well played...they just politely clapped.. This was in sharp contrast to a group of college students sitting in front of me. Every shot and every run saw them standing up and cheering like mad. This had a Bengali gentleman sitting behind me completely agitated and a shouting match ensued between the 2 before sanity prevailed. The group’s final comment to the gentleman were ‘picture thodi na dekhne aaye hai jo seat par baith kar rahenge’ :D

Suddenly, Sehwag gave catching practice to the fielder and departed. Crowd got restive, but no worries, Sachin was still there. Horrors o horrors, soon Tendulkar also joined Sehwag in the dressing room. There is literally a pin drop silence in the stands. Out walked Kohli and the general chit chat going around me is as follows:

‘aaj to gaya India…’

‘Juvraaj hoto to jeete jetaam aaj ke’ (If Yuvraaj was there, we would have won)

‘Dhoni nei, Juvraaj o nei – kichu hobe na Indiar aajke' ( No Dhoni, No Yuvraaj...nothing will work for India today)

As Kohli’s batting statistics were being displayed on the electronic screen, somebody commented

‘arey dekh iska career best 79 hai’

to which someone replied ‘abey to aaj wapas thodi na 79 maarega!!! ’

But, Kohli did hit 79…infact, bettered it by a mile… Each run from Kohli and Gambhir was cheered and any appeal from the bowler had the crowd booing loudly. And the atmosphere when the two got their centuries – one simply had to be there to witness the madness …Just when Kohli reached his century, the Eden veteran sitting near me, suddenly stood up… Ah..finally he gets up to cheer, were my thoughts… But, he took the water packets safely stored with him, opened them a bit and threw it high in the sky in front to celebrate the centurions J

Kohli fell to a good catch on the boundary but with the target within reaching distance, the crowd welcomed Dinesh Kartik and gave a standing ovation to Kohli. Just when we were 4 runs short of victory, the veterans stood up again…this time however, everyone was ready and ‘packet rain’ followed in the chill of December night as Gambhir hit the winning runs… Slightly soaked, but super charged, we made our way out of the stadium, having witnessed history today J