Saheli De, a Class VIII student of Welland Goldsmith School, got hooked to cricket after India’s World Cup win. Then came the IPL and KKR’s winning start. The 13-year-old made her Eden debut on Friday. The stadium didn’t disappoint, though her team did.
I was shocked! It was simply awesome!! I have never seen a better sight in my life.
That’s what I told my cousin as soon as we found our seats in Block C, just in front of the corporate boxes. I had to shout to make myself heard above the roar of the crowd!
My cousin had, like a messiah, offered to take me to the Eden Gardens for today’s match. The offer came out of the blue when I told her how upset I was that so many of my friends in school, like Trishita and Dishani, were going for the match but I would have to watch it on TV at home.
As we were walking down the aisle towards the galleries and the field was gradually coming into view, my jaw dropped. Wow!
The first ball was about to be bowled and the crowd was going berserk.
I noticed at once how the actual noise was very different from what we hear on TV. Even the grass and the stands looked much more beautiful.
I was dumbfounded, I think, by the sights and sounds around me, including the songs at full blast between overs, and the cheer girls dancing away on that little platform right in front of me. I don’t think much of the first few minutes registered other than that (Jacques) Kallis hit a four off the first ball.
When my brain started working again, I tried to look at the KKR dugout and see my favourite Knights, Brett Lee and Shakib Al Hasan (who looks like a cousin of mine).
Hits to the fence continued pretty regularly, bringing the music back in short spells, and at the end of the fourth over I saw that we were going at over 10 runs an over! Later, after (Brad) Haddin got out, another of my favourites in the team, Gautam Gambhir, played some cool shots too. The loudest cheers were for Yusuf Pathan even as he was making his way to the middle.
By now, I had overheard that Shah Rukh Khan generally comes to the box behind me, to the extreme left. Some said they had seen him but I couldn’t spot him. I was amused to see many people turning towards the box even when a ball was being bowled. I was wondering if I should do the same when I had another breathtaking experience — a Mexican wave at the Eden Gardens. I participated in it as the wave rippled around the stadium!
At the end of the 16th over, I felt droplets of rain and I prayed hard to the rain gods to keep the rain away as we were sure to post a big total. We did post a big total but as the evening wore on I wished I hadn’t prayed so hard!
The second half of the evening obviously spoilt my first match at the Eden and I even felt that the KKR fielders were not running after the ball hard enough. It took me about 10 overs after the break to be certain that Brett Lee was not on the ground. I couldn’t believe it at first. I don’t know when I will get the chance to see him ‘live’ again.
By the 15th over, people were leaving the ground because we could all see that KKR would lose badly. My cousin and I, however, decided to stay back for (Chris) Gayle’s century. Why couldn’t he have played like this for KKR?
But I must admit that the ground had become even more beautiful under the floodlights and the huge sixes hit by Gayle looked stunning against the night sky.
My lasting memory of my first match at the Eden? Not SRK, not Deepika Padukone, not a Gayle six. It will be the first view of the wonderful ground with its super noisy crowd. Thank you, Eden.
