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It has stood witness to India’s highest of highs and the lowest of lows. When Sachin Tendulkar walked out to bat, the roar could be heard from the canteen of Calcutta High Court. With time, the sight of VVS Laxman too triggered similar euphoria. The notoriously opinionated spectators still rise in thankful celebration of good cricket but dare not disrespect the cynosure of their eyes, be it Tendulkar in 1999 or Sourav Ganguly in 2005. Eden Gardens, however, doesn’t belong only to India.
After Carlos Brathwaite unleashed mayhem in four balls, Eden had swayed to “DJ Bravo” on April 3, 2016 as a shirtless Caribbean team went on a lap of honour at a ground, they could call home a long way from home. Asif Iqbal still has fond memories of the standing ovation in his final Test. Steve Waugh calls it the “Lord’s of the subcontinent” despite being at the receiving end of one of the greatest Test comebacks. And Shoaib Akhtar will probably never forget the adulation he received during the IPL despite Eden never getting over the shock of watching him send the stumps of Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar cartwheeling in 1999.
What South Africa, however, shares with Eden goes beyond mere cricket. Back in 1991, it was a theatre where dreams of post-apartheid readmission were finally realised after a two-decade long wait.
“We had been told that India truly loved their cricket, but we had no way of being able to comprehend it without seeing it for ourselves,” writes Mike Procter, coach of that South Africa team, in his memoir, Caught in the Middle. “It was, in a sense, an intimidating scene, but we were too busy pinching ourselves about the fact that it was happening.”
Team manager and facilitator of that tour, Ali Bacher remembers the exact moment he saw South Africa openers Andrew Hudson and Jimmy Cook going out to bat. “One look at Andrew and I said to myself ‘The first ball on his wickets and he is out’. You could see the stage fright. I was right! Kapil got him out in the first over,” he had told HT in an interview in 2021.
A fair bit of nuanced diplomacy—including setting up a meeting between Ali and Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu—helped Jagmohan Dalmiya, then BCCI secretary, clinch that tour opener for Eden Gardens but what he accidentally achieved in the process went on to change the face of sports broadcasting in India.
On getting to know Doordarshan never used to pay the BCCI any broadcasting fee to televise cricket in India, Ali made an offer Dalmiya couldn’t refuse. “I told Dalmiya: ‘This is history in the making. I am going to give you a quarter million rand to arrange that broadcast to South Africa’. He couldn’t believe it. That moment he realised how Indian cricket was undersold for decades,” said Bacher.
The result wasn’t important, even though South Africa fought in defeat. But Clive Rice, their captain, couldn’t have summed up their feelings better: “I know how Neil Armstrong felt when he stood on the moon.”
It was the start of a unique relationship with Eden Gardens, where Lance Klusener taking eight wickets on debut in 1996 and Gary Kirsten scoring hundreds in both innings of the same Test—a feat that Hashim Amla later repeated in 2010—are some of the specials South Africa have saved for this part of the world.
Note to the reader: one of India’s heaviest ODI defeats at home—by 10 wickets—have come at Eden as well. This was circa 2005, when India were going through a peculiar phase with Rahul Dravid as captain and Greg Chappell as coach. South Africa were in the ascendancy but India, as always, was the final frontier.
On any other day Eden Gardens would have embraced India but not this time, not after Sourav Ganguly had been dropped. So almost 90,000 turned up at Eden booing India, targeting their ire specifically at the brains behind a decision they couldn’t digest.
It was an entrapment India weren’t used to, especially at home. The batting was pedestrian till Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif added 81 for the sixth wicket and pushed India to 188. In reply, Graeme Smith went hammer and tongs on a dewy pitch, smashing a hundred and packing off India within 35.5 overs. All the while, Eden kept cheering for South Africa and chanting “Dada, Dada”.
Dravid tried to play down the hostility but when TV footage emerged of Chappell pointing his middle finger out of the window of the team bus at the crowd outside the stadium, it was evident Eden had got to India.
Back “home” in Mumbai for the fifth ODI that India won to level that series, Dravid finally opened up.
“Yes, what happened there was unfortunate. There were some sections of the ground, which didn’t support us. Fortunately, I wasn’t fielding on the boundary where apparently some of our players were abused,” he said. “But it happens sometimes. It’s a part and parcel of international cricket. And I told the guys jokingly that at least we were in good company. Sunil Gavaskar was booed at Eden Gardens in 1983 and the team went on to win the World Cup. So, hopefully, we’ll do the same.”
Dravid hoped in vain, for 2007 went down in history as a misadventure that taught India probably a hundred ways of not playing a World Cup. It can’t be a coincidence that Dravid is back at Eden Gardens, as coach this time, seeking a World Cup that has eluded India for 12 years, with a formidable South Africa again waiting to trip up their dream run.
Life coming full circle, perhaps? Whatever it is, at least this time Dravid must know Eden has got India’s back.
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