Kiwis back at Eden after 51 yrs to play in India's 250th home Test

| Sumit Mukherjee | TNN | Sep 30, 2016, 07:53 IST

KOLKATA: The Theory of Probability says that if you flip a coin a large number of times, it is more or less certain that half the time it will fall heads up and an equal number of time tails up.Indian cricket officials never indulged in coin-flipping exercise while scheduling cricket tours to India or overseas, but by some strange coincidence got the equation balanced nicely .

Interestingly , the Indian team which played its 500th Test in Kanpur last week, will be playing its 250th match on home soil -on the hallowed turf of 150-year-old Eden Gardens. This means, the 500 Tests that India have played since 1932, are evenly split (on home-and-away basis).

Strangely , the last time New Zealand played a Test match at Eden Gardens was 51years ago. Five decades is too long a walk down memory lane for most of us. None of the current players in either team was even born when the Nawab of Pataudi (jr) went out for the toss with his New Zealand counterpart John Reid on March 5, 1965. The four-day Test ended in a tame draw but not before the charismatic Nawab treated the Eden crowd to some exquisite strokeplay in making asplendid 153.

It remains `Tiger's' only Test century at the iconic venue where fans later hailed him as `Banglar jamai (Bengal's son-in-law)' after he married the popular Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore in1969. That Test also featured two other Eden favourtites -M LJaisimha and Salim Durrani.

Sadly , six of the Indian playing XI in that match -Tiger Pataudi, Jaisimha, Ramakant Desai, Baloo Gupte, Hanumant Singh and Budhi Kunderan -have since passed away . New Zealand too have suffered two casualties -Bert Sutcliffe and Dick Motz. Even the two umpires in that match -Santosh Ganguli and Bapu Joshi are no longer around. But then, that was a different era when cricket was still largely an amateur sport, not driven by television ratings.. Cut to the present: You have a modern stadium. Since 1965, Eden has been given at least half-a-dozen facelifts. A Lord's-like giant bell is the latest ornament to adorn Eden.

When Kapil Dev rings that bell for the first time on Friday to mark the beginning of the day's play , Eden will add a slice of history to its already rich heritage.

Old-timers and Eden regulars believe that if the two teams play quality cricket, people will come in through the turnstiles to watch. But given the mismatch between the two teams, highlighted by the visitors' meek capitulation in Kanpur, it will take a mighty effort from the Kiwis to prevent another Test and series loss.

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Top Comment

Debtanu Das

3015 days ago

They have came back and playing, that's a good development...Nxt test match with them in Eden should not be that longer...

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