Immediately after India, aided by the business-as-usual brilliance of Bumrah, survived the Bethell storm in Wankhede stadium and won the second semifinal of the ICC T20 World Cup, a friend called.
The school friend, who accompanied me to the Eden Gardens the day before, blurted; “This is worthy of a World Cup semifinal … Yesterday was a complete waste; South Africa … again… choked.”
Though Dale Steyn recently claimed that New Zealand is a bigger choker than South Africa, the fact remains that the stigma has got stuck more stickily with the latter; especially in white ball cricket.
And, Eden has been no exception.
Three-and-a-half decades and continuing
It was November 10, 1991. South Africa, returning to international cricket once the ICC lifted the 21-years long ban, came to Eden Gardens to play the first of a three one-day match series in India — mainly as a gratitude to Jagmohan Dalmiya, who played a key role in their return to international cricket.
I still remember how South Africa managed to lose the match in front of a packed Eden even after a menacing Allan Donald ripped through India’s top order with India losing the first three wickets inside 20 runs! Tendulkar, at 18, played a masterly innings defying Donald and rest.
Tendulkar again played a key role in South Africa’s next defeat at Eden two years after in the Hero Cup, albeit with ball this time, with South Africa choking again from a winning position, and Sachin defending six runs in the final over.
While South Africa won the next match against India at Eden, in 2006, thanks to Graeme Smith’s swashbuckling century, one still remembers how the present Indian chief selector Ajit Agarkar was thrashed around. They came back to the choking corridor again in the next ODI in 2023; when they could manage only 83 runs against India’s mammoth total of 320-plus, scored against a bowling attack that was almost akin to one that got thrashed to all corners of the ground by New Zealand batters the other day.
South Africa's captain Aiden Markram, left, with Lungi Ngidi during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026 match between South Africa and New Zealand, at Eden Gardens PTI
The trend continues in their matches against other teams too, as they lost to Australia in the 2023 ODI World Cup semifinal after scoring paltry 212, and even after having Australia five wickets down for 140.
The saga continued in the last T20 match, when South Africa, despite being favourites, meekly succumbed to the Black Caps.
Eden has changed a lot
While South Africa’s pattern of cricket has not changed much over decades, Eden Garden has gone through a sea change. It may not be colossal any more in structure but, definitely, in its character; particularly crowd response to cricket.
And, there are multiple signals; and many of the old-era spectators link these to DJ-driven IPL cricketainment. In fact, Sunil Gavaskar was aghast when a laser show was conducted in Eden during a drinks break in the recent India vs West Indies match, with the flood lights switched off.
“Do you need this kind of entertainment? … it’s fine in the middle of the IPL … But at the moment here, in the World Cup, do we need these laser shows at the drinks interval?” blurted Gavaskar.
The laser show was not conducted during the South Africa vs New Zealand match; but DJ-driven chaos was all around, and often in between an over, something Gavaskar also criticised during India’s semifinal at Mumbai.
“The ground was slightly more than half full, and with South Africa hardly putting up a fight, the customary Eden noise was absent and, literally all the noise came from the DJ booth. It was quite irritating to say the least, particularly with massive sound boxes just in front of us, blurting the deafening noise almost throughout the entire duration of the match” said Parikhit Aich, an Eden regular, who was in Block E.
South Africa's Keshav Maharaj fields during the match PTI
“In a mobile app, I saw during the DJ announcement, the noise level rose to around 90 decibels while it was around 40 decibels when the announcement was not there” pointed out Kaushik Chatterjee, who came with Parikhit.
A ground, where moving during an over was a strict 'no, no' even till a few years back, has turned into a free-for-all zone with people merrily walking all over, always, with police and volunteers – most sitting and watching the game – remained hardly bothered.
The frenzy turned fanatical when the cameramen chose to target a part of the audience. Spontaneity has gone for a toss as even the Mexican wave or mobile lights are now only DJ driven!
Mass selfie shoots are another addition that Eden can do without. As Finn Allen was launching into another massive hit, a middle aged person, sitting in the front row, suddenly turned around to take a carefully adjusted selfie so that the match came clearly in background.
“Dada, ki hocche, khela toh samner dikey” (What’s happening, the match is in the front) quipped one from the back, but dada was hardly bothered.
As a matter of fact, the famous Eden humour and cricketing intellect has largely been lost over the years. “Allen, elen ar gelen na!” quipped a middle-aged man as Allen hit a boundary to bring his century and a Black Caps win; a rare humour that I came across during the last match. Such one liners were as common as Bumrah’s yorkers till a few years back.
Perhaps, the Sourav Ganguly-led Cricket Association of Bengal should do something to bring back the old crowd character – and charm – to Eden Garden.