Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid during their partnership at the Eden on Monday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh.

Sachin Tendulkar’s on 22, searching for his hundredth hundred, and I’m about to commit suicide by getting him out at Eden Gardens.

Tendu’s batting cautiously, treating Devendra Bishoo as if the youngster is a cross between Clarrie Grimmett and Jasu Patel. When he crosses over to the High Court end, facing those of us sitting in the Club House, he’s dealing with Fidel Edwards and Darren Sammy. Every now and then ST gestures with his hand, telling invisible or non-existent people behind the sight screen to sit down. Whenever he gestures, he seems to be looking straight at me, even though I’m frozen.

I find myself playing ‘Statue’, sitting in the CAB members’ stand right next to where huge white sheets have been spread to cover over a hundred seats behind the sight screen.

Sitting next to me is a Cricket Association of Bengal Old-Timer who’s been muttering since before the beginning of the match. ‘Gavaskar ki playaar chhilo na?’ Wasn’t Gavaskar a player? Did Curtly Ambrose not bowl here? And was Ambrose short? How come nobody has ever asked for the sight screens to be enlarged before? This is just Tendulkar showing his power. Let him try doing that abroad, they’ll just say “bhai, play if you want with these sight screens, otherwise go home”!

As I listen to the Old-Timer, I watch the players come in from their warming-up. I notice they’re drenched in sweat. It’s barely 9am in mid-November at the Eden and there’s not a single cricket sweater in sight. As the West Indians take the field, I notice something else. I’ve been trying not to see it but — now that the match is starting — there’s no escaping it. On the first day of a Test between India and the West Indies, Eden Gardens is as empty as the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve got things going.

Or, okay, almost as empty: as Sehwag and Gambhir jog on to the field doing their bat swings and squinting into the sun, there are no more than 500 people sprinkled around the ground, making the spanking-new look of the massive stands entirely surreal. I say this to the Old-Timer who snorts: “Ban all cricket for one year! Just ban it! Then they’ll understand the value of Tests! At least ban this T-20 disease!”

After a while some school kids are brought in and they proceed to wave Indian flags vigorously. I see a school-teacher warning his students in a few years’ time: ‘Children, if you’re naughty your punishment will be to go to Eden tomorrow and watch Mr Tendulkar score his 80th Test hundred!’

By the fourth over of the innings, the wicketkeeper is standing up to a West Indian fast bowler. Sehwag soon shows his approval by clanking Sammy for three fours in a row, one of them typical, bat hanging perpendicular a few buildings away from his body, like something off a construction crane. Soon he’s past 30 and it looks as if no one else is going to get to bat today, not even Gautam Gambhir.

Then Viru-beta smacks one straight into mid wicket’s surprised hands. He walks off, cursing himself for missing out on becoming the first Indian to cross 400 in a Test innings — on this pitch and against this attack, a record clearly his for the taking.

Gambhir carries on and the one-down chappie who joins him also seems somewhat inspired by Sehwag. Gambhir keeps finding the boundary. One-down does also, but with those, you know, old-fashioned, 20th century kind of strokes that involve footwork, a straight bat, grace, wrist-work, timing and the ball silking along the ground just out of the fielder’s reach.

By lunch, ball has beaten the bat exactly once. There has been no snick to or through the slips and there has been one half-hearted lbw appeal. After some imperiously lazy milking by Gambhir and the No. 3 fellow, Gambhir decides this kind of batting is too tedious and generously offers catching practice to short cover. Another pair of surprised hands latch on to another early Christmas gift.

In walks Mr T at 12.09pm. The ground seems to double in voice, if not in bodies.

Mr T takes guard and immediately complains about the movement near our screen. ‘I just knew it!’ The Old-Timer snaps, ‘As soon as he’ll come in he’ll complain! I knew it!’ The -T gets up from his seat three chairs to my right and plonks himself down next to me. ‘Ebaar chenchaaleyo oshubidha hobey ’r!’ Now he’ll complain even if the crowd shouts too much. To be fully appreciated, this wisecrack has to be heard as you’re going deaf sitting in an Eden Gardens that’s not even one-third full.

Mr T flicks a ball off his toes for his first boundary. Crowd erupts. Then he does one of his minimalist, one-step-forward, checked follow-through cover drives, again for four. You quickly forgive him all the irritations he’s given you, which — to be fair — are not that many. Suddenly Mr T’s on 22, while the old-fashioned No. 3 fellow’s hitting everything from the slow bowlers, each and every ball, against the spin. Just to show the little blighters what he can do to them and to any boyfriend of Liz Hurley’s. He can do it and so can Mr T, but not today, it seems.

As Tendulkar again waves his arm up and down, the cop officer behind us goes into a frenzy. Despite the fact that this is a posh stand full of people Who May Know Someone, the cop nearly takes out a man who dares to stand up while Tendu’s facing Edwards. ‘SIT DOWN! Can’t you see Sachin’s batting??? I’ll throw you out of the ground!’

Now, I can understand that it feels unfair and even dangerous because you’re supposed to be able to see the red ball against the white screen in order to play it. I can understand that a man of ST’s height has to look upwards at the bowling arm of someone tall like Sammy, if not so much at Edwards who has a slingy action. I can imagine movement behind the bowler can be distracting. But the offending man in my stand has been moving at least 20 feet above what would have been the head of a very wide long off. It’s not something that should bother a man of Tendulkar’s phenomenal concentration, but who knows what demons are crawling through his head? It’s easy to imagine that completing that damn century is weighing on his mind but that this is not the context for it, that the ton needs the pumping of some higher-octane adrenaline than can be triggered by these West Indians. Today the great man somehow manages to look simultaneously nervous and bored.

Finally, with his score at 38, equalling today’s non-quadruple centurion Viru, Tendu makes sure he’s not going to bless Eden with his precious 100th ton today. At 13.28pm he concocts one of the ugliest dismissals you will ever see him serve up: a horrible, unnecessary, pointless, swipe-hoick-slice, zombie-mutant of a pull that scoops itself down a fielder’s throat. The crowd goes silent as if someone’s pushed a mass mute-button. People freeze in their seats, even the ones square of the wicket. The Windies celebrate, Tendulkar goes.

As V.V.S. Laxman comes out to join Rahul Dravid, the point of this weird cricketing day finally becomes crystal clear. Today is not about Viru, Gauti or Tendlya. It’s about watching two of the most supremely talented, graceful, beautiful and valiant men ever to hold cricket bats say farewell to the ground where they together fought their greatest home battle 10 years ago. As Dravid moves to his century and Laxman to fifty, it’s as if two great classical vocalists are unfolding the same raag together. It’s old-fashioned, yes, and it will be irreplaceable.