Hundreds gather outside the Raj Bhavan gates on Thursday afternoon. Picture by Amit Datta

When Sourav Ganguly drove out of the Club House at 10.45am after a jog-and-gym session there was no one around to cheer him on. If Bengal’s sporting hero was desperately seeking a crowd he should have taken a gentle detour — for on Friday, Raj Bhavan was the new Eden Gardens.

It was a very different pitch and a whole new ball game, but Calcuttans flocked to the Raj Bhavan gates by the hundreds — just like they do at Eden on a big match day.

With Trinamul running in to bowl to CPM, and a Gandhi officiating as third umpire, excitement ran high outside the regal gates.

“Dada, ke ashbe (Who’s expected)?” asked an onlooker.

“George Bush,” was the deadpan reply from a middle-aged man displaying trademark Eden wit.

Speculation ran high about the composition of Team Singur inside Raj Bhavan — just like the wild talk about the playing XI outside Eden.

Many were convinced that chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee would lead their respective teams into the Council Chamber.

“I’ve heard that Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi has summoned Ratan Tata,” said a youth, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Tata Group chairman and praying that he would not say bye-bye to Bengal.

The otherwise sleepy Raj Bhavan was where all the action was throughout Friday. “The crowd outside Raj Bhavan has been building up since 9am. We reduced the width of Council House Street for vehicular traffic in the afternoon. But when the crowd began to thin and vehicular pressure increased around 5.30pm, we removed the guard rails,” said a senior police officer at the site.

The crowd count at the intersection of Government East Place and Council House Street peaked between 4pm and 5pm, with over 600 people jostling for a glimpse of those driving in to talk politics and industrialisation behind closed doors, and craning for an update of the Singur score.

The 35-member police force manning the gates had to put up with not just the crowd but also plenty of chatter, ranging from the sombre to the silly.

“Let the Tatas come up with Tata Potato Chips. They can grow potatoes on the disputed land and everyone will be happy,” said Shyamal Dey, a resident of Central Avenue. The comic relief was cut short by a grim debate over the pros and cons of the Nano rollout from Singur, where everything from the panchayat poll results to Mamata’s roadblock was dissected.

Every time the sound of a siren pierced this cacophony and a VIP car rolled close, cries of “Eshe gechhe, eshe gechhe” replaced the words of wisdom and wit. Fresh debates then broke out over who it was behind the rolled-up dark car windows.

“The interest the general Calcuttan has taken in this event is phenomenal,” gushed an outsider, 33-year-old freelance writer Richard Orange from UK.

By 5.30pm, interest levels had dropped and the crowd starved of live action began to thin. By the time Team Singur left Raj Bhavan, there were hardly 10 onlookers.

Sourav Ganguly can take heart — games politicians play behind closed doors isn’t a spectator sport, yet.