Eden Diary: Kolkata hosts its first night game of the T20 W. Cup at grand old venue

Three weeks down the line from when the ICC T20 World Cup began, Eden Gardens finally kept its date with its first night game. It’s almost poetic justice that it has turned out to be a virtual quarter-final between India and the West Indies — and trust the Kolkata fans to turn out in full numbers.

The roar of fans patiently lining up at the Red Road crossing, as the traffic police lifted the boom bar to let them pass through and walk their way to the appointed gates, brought back the familiar vibes.

‘’It doesn’t seem fair that we have only one India game, that too subject to Super Eight fixtures. But then a home World Cup always poses a dilemma for the BCCI as all major centres want a pound of flesh (read an India game),’’ said Tirthankar Sarkar, a young IT professional making his way to the venue.

The atmosphere inside the venue, to borrow a cliché, was simply electric even before the action began after Suryakumar Yadav won the toss and decided to bat. It’s been a few years since historic venue lost its pride of place as the stadium with the maximum capacity in India to Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, but one has to be a part of the crowd to realise what still makes it special.

"Eden is such a venue that even if one built a capacity of 100,000-plus, it would still be full,’’ gushed Sourav Ganguly, president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) during one of his numerous casual chats in the build-up to the big game.

Believe it or not, it’s been almost three decades since India figured in a virtual World Cup knockout match at the historic venue. Many of the young spectators who filled the stands on Sunday were not even born the last time India played a World Cup knockout at Eden — the 1996 ODI World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka.

That infamous match, however, ended in heartbreak. More than 1,00,000 spectators (the official capacity until it was pruned to 67,000 for security reasons later) had turned up, but a middle-order meltdown in the home team led to bottles being hurled onto the pitch and fires lit in the stands. Match referee Clive Lloyd awarded the game to Sri Lanka, who eventually went on to lift the trophy under the captaincy of Arjuna Ranatunga.