Will a frustrated SRK allow Eden fans to be super selectors?

Doubts, delight, disbelief, despair — Eden Gardens was a roller coaster of emotions on Super Sunday as Kolkata Knight Riders sank to a defeat at the hands of league-table trailers Kings XI Punjab despite putting up their highest total this IPL.

For the holiday crowd, the afternoon had started on a slightly frustrating note with one name they had expected to see on the team list missing: Brendon McCullum. The holder of the highest individual IPL score of 158 not out was, after all, a certainty in the book of every super selector picking his team on match-eve.

“Ganguly and McCullum should open. Hussey sits out,” said Kamran Ahmed, an ISC examinee, obviously taking SRK’s promo pitch of seeking advice from KKR fans on every aspect of the game very seriously. “McCullum, Hodge, Hussey and certainly Gayle,” was the four-foreigner formula of J Block-bound Mimi Banerjee of Jadavpur University.

Enter, Gayle with skipper Sourav but the Calypso king’s batting isn’t so hot. Not yet. The crowd gets restive. So much so that Gayle is even blamed for Sourav’s dismissal.

“Dada had to pay the price for his partner’s slow scoring,” snipes a fan.

“Shah Rukh bodhhoy poysha dey ni. O hand declare dik (Maybe Shah Rukh hasn’t paid him. Let him declare himself out),” smirks an Eden regular, invoking a popular para cricket provision, as Gayle limps to 20 off 20 balls.

It’s over no. 13, and Gayle suddenly strikes with gale force, tearing into Ravi Bopara with four sixes. Just the dose the Eden crowd needs for the mood to change. All izz well.

By the time Gayle walks back with 88 off 42 balls, the naysayers have seen enough to back him over McCullum. “Picking last year’s captain could have resulted in an ego clash with Sourav,” says one turncoat. The galleries are now confident of a KKR win.

The bat and ball change hands after a short break. It’s shock-therapy time, with the runs now flowing from the Kings XI bats and through the porous hands of the KKR fielders. “Jaidev Unadkat who?” asks an indignant fan as Sourav hands the ball to a nervous, unknown face without a name on his purple shirt.

Five overs to go and the crowd knows by now that it is Mahela Jayawardene’s day. As he sends “Jaidev who?” over the ropes yet again, it’s all over. “Where is our Laxmi (Ratan Shukla)?” wonders a despondent fan.

With Bhoomi’s Baranday roddur playing on the loudspeaker, they troop out, mostly in silence. A cheeky one sings “Tomar dekha nai re (You are nowhere to be seen),” perhaps alluding to the elusive win.

The wisecrack of the evening comes seconds later. “Why are they so sad? West Indies played well, Sri Lanka played better.”

For Eden’s IPL super selectors, it’s still country over club.