The lights are now switched off at the Eden Gardens soon after the match because there are certain transportation issues. So there can be no question of our playing.

— Sunil Gavaskar, on whether he would play with SRK at the Eden this weekend like he did on April 17

The Little Master’s remark in Hyderabad last Tuesday has left the cricket authorities in Calcutta ducking questions on whether the Eden lights are being switched off earlier than usual to tell fans to go find transport as fast as they can.

The CEO of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Venky Mysore, said the IPL franchise was in the dark about any plan to empty out the stadium as soon as possible after a night match to avoid trouble over lack of transport options. “The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) takes care of the logistics,” Mysore told Metro.

A CAB official passed the buck to the KKR management, saying the association had rented out the ground to the franchise.

Fans going to the night matches of IPL 4 at the Eden have been struggling to find transport to return home since the first one on April 11.

Metro Railway, which could have solved the problem by running a few special trains, has washed its hands of the problem.

Chief public relations officer Pratyush Ghosh said KKR had agreed to pay Metro Railway for special trains for the April 17 match but backed out at the last moment.

“On April 15, I was supposed to meet Russell Adamson of the KKR to receive a cheque for Rs 75,000. Against that payment, we were to ply four trains from Esplanade, two each to Dum Dum and Garia. But the deal fell through,” Ghosh alleged.

Knight Riders CEO Mysore said he was unaware of any such deal in the making prior to that match.

So wasn’t KKR bothered about how fans would return home after the match?

According to Mysore, police had assured the franchise of adequate transport arrangements. “I was told by the police commissioner of Calcutta that enough buses and taxis would be available for the spectators,” he said.

Subhankar Das, 13, did find transport after the Knight Riders-Kochi Tuskers match at the Eden on April 20 — in a shuttle taxi crammed with eight passengers, excluding the driver. The taxi, headed for Howrah Maidan, rammed into a pillar of the Howrah bridge after a tyre burst. “We could have lost our lives that day,” Subhankar recalled with a shudder.

Rajesh Mishra, 27, from Rajarhat, reached home at 2pm that night, almost three-and-a-half hours after the match had ended. “As fans and citizens, we deserve better,” he said.