GIRL POWER: Women cheer Shah Rukh Khan’s Knights at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday evening. Picture by Pabitra Das

Shah Rukh 40, the Ladies 40. That’s the T20 score.

If you’re not too good with numbers, wait till you hear Nilanjana Sen, 28. There we go again!

“Shah Rukh 40 per cent, T20 format 20 per cent, home team 20 per cent and Sourav 20 per cent,” she said, explaining why she can be caught at the Eden every time the Knights take the field.

She should know her sums. She’s a schoolteacher. The ladies — schoolteachers and their students — have invaded the Garden of Eden.

Rough estimates by the Cricket Association of Bengal suggest women are making up about 40 per cent of the crowd for the T20 matches.

Some are coming for cricketing reasons, some for SRKricketing reasons. But, as they say in cricket, the runs matter, not how you get them.

Sradha, a working girl, said: “I used to think it’s called Twenty20 because there will be 20 players each time. Then Shah Rukh Khan decided to become a part of the game. I watched my first live match at Eden Gardens on April 20 and haven’t stopped since.”

Why should anyone be surprised that the King is bigger than his Knights?

Samar Pal, the joint secretary of the CAB, said: “Earlier, women used to comprise 20 per cent of the crowd. Now the figure has doubled.”

If every woman hotfooting it to the Eden was like 18-year-old Shafaque, it should have tripled. For Tuesday’s match against the Delhi Daredevils, she not only got her 13-year-old sister Ofaque with her, but also her mother Nazish.

“Oh, I got really close to him in the match against the Royal Challengers,” she gushed.

Him? Him who?

So you think women are going only to see SRK?

Not Sapna Sen. “I don’t mind the presence of the film stars but I am here for the game,” said the principal of an engineering college.

A schoolteacher, a principal — there’s a Teach20 lesson for all so-called purists who turn their noses up at T20.

Sen isn’t done yet. “I prefer the new format because it’s all over in three hours, the duration of a film.”

She couldn’t be more right. Jodhaa Akbar ran for 210 minutes — the same length as a T20 tie.

The ladies are gathering round TV sets too. Joy Bhattacharya, the CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders, said: “Figures suggest this is the first time a TV programme has ensured compulsive family viewing. Ladies of the house earlier used to watch only the World Cup cricket final.”

There’s nothing new in some women being drawn to sports arenas in India, or anywhere else, for reasons that may not be strictly sporting. Shah Rukh wasn’t born when a woman ran onto the ground at the Brabourne Stadium and kissed Abbas Ali Baig.

It wasn’t that long ago that a girl — from Murshidabad — hugged Mahendra Singh Dhoni at the Eden.

Still, women are not a common sight on Indian sports grounds and the Indian Premier League may have set a trend.

Parfulla Agnihotri, who teaches marketing at IIM Calcutta, saw a definite strategy in the Indian Premier League organisers getting film stars on the storyboard. “It’s now common for marketing people to target women and children, with women becoming economically independent.”

With so many women around and several of the matches ending late, the police are posting some 5,000 personnel, 10 to 15 per cent of them women, in and around the Eden.

If they’re made to feel secure, more first-timers like Pinki Bhaia, 32, will turn up. “I must confess it is just to watch Shah Rukh Khan from up close for a full three hours (that I have come),” smiled the mother of three, not far from SRK at the Eden on Tuesday evening.