Eden Diary: Long wait for City of Joy to get a Test match

The last time Eden Gardens hosted a Test match was — believe it or not — also in November, but all the way back in 2019. The only survivor from that Pink Ball Test against Bangladesh in the current Indian team which is set to take on South Africa this weekend is Ravindra Jadeja, a relic of an era when the new-ball attack was led by Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami.

The gap is really stark, given the reputation of a venue which has hosted the maximum number of Test matches on Indian soil during a long period between 1934 and 2019. M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, aka Chepauk in Chennai, and Arjun Jaitley Stadium is jointly second with 35 Tests each.

However, those in the know of the dynamics of allotment of matches by the BCCI are not really surprised as the board had been following a rotation policy to allot their home games on all formats — with venues in B cities turning out to be bigtime beneficiaries in recent years. The unwritten battle for brownie points now is over getting the plum white-ball contests rather than the longer format.  

When South Africa last toured India in 2019, the three Tests were played at venues that were each hosting just their second-ever Test matches: Visakhapatnam, Pune and Ranchi. Something which prompted the then captain Virat Kohli to criticise the policy in no uncertain words: ‘’We’ve been discussing this for a long time now, and in my opinion we should have five Test centres, period,’’ Kohli had said after the conclusion of one of the Tests.

‘’I mean, I agree [with] state associations and rotation and giving games and all that, that is fine for T20 and one-day cricket but Test cricket, teams coming to India should know: ‘we're going to play at these five centres, these are the pitches we’re going to expect, these are the kind of people that will come to watch, crowds’."

Incidentally, the second Test of the upcoming series will be held at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati, set to make it’s debut as a Test venue. The capital of north eastern state of Assam has shot into prominence in recent times — what with IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals shifting a few of their ‘home’ matches there every year at the behest of one of their co-owners.

There is enough curiosity now as to whether Eden, which has a reputation of filling up with even very little remaining action on the final day, can see a capacity crowd of 60,000. ‘’The Test match has been sold out,’’ declared Sourav Ganguly, president of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), on Monday.

Another two days’ wait and one will know whether the City of Joy, fed on an overdose of white ball cricket since the Covid, still has the hunger for a quality Test contest.