This Valentine’s Day was special, unexpected, but special.
It turned out it won’t be possible for me to meet my girlfriend. I saw tickets for the India SA test were on sale. I thought of buying them on my way from office. To my pleasant surprise, my father said he could arrange for the season tickets.
The next I know, I was sitting behind the sight screen at the High Court End along with 35,000 odd screaming fans… Oh, and my mother sitting next to me. There was my Valentine.
The Eden Gardens has an aura of its own. And even though the stadium was under construction, the feeling of Eden was still there. My mother, a first-timer at the ground, found it as a whole new experience.
To my disappointment, the Proteas won the toss and batted first. However, Zaheer Khan knocked out his ‘bunny’ in his 2nd over, and we were screaming with joy. The joy was short lived, as Hasim Amla and the other Peterson batted pretty much for 2 sessions.
It got frustrating. That’s when all the unimportant things seemed so exciting. Virendra Sehwag entertained the crowd with his antics. Bhajji had a bit of fun. But the moment the God himself came near the boundry, the crowd was wild. A mere look at the crowd was enough, and then he waved.. he waved… wow… as far as I know, Lord Shiva, Ganesh, Karthik etc. never wave to their deities, but our God does… eat that!
Between all this, there was the annoying chit chat around us. A girl with shiny clothes and excessive amounts of scorching red lip-stick, asked her father, “Baba, is that Ishant Shorma… and who is that… Where is Sho-cheen”… “Is this a practice match… why aren’t they wearing the blue jersey… why are they changing ends after overs, they don’t do it on TV..”
I wanted to strangulate that girl…
Anyways, it was tea, SA were 228/2… great position. But with Eden you never know, so I told mom, if we leave now, SA will lose several wickets, I just had a feeling. My mom was like “then I’m not leaving..” I promised her I’ll take her to Barista, feed her “The Wicked Brownie”… I had to do it, for the sake of Indian Cricket, I bribed my mom out of the stadium.
When couples spoke sweet nothings and fed each other chocolates on Valentine’s Day, I was sitting with my mom in Barista, eating “the Brownie”, our eyes glued to the TV there, that’s when the 4th wicket fell.
By the time we were home, SA were 266/9. The miracle had happened, Eden and I conspired against the South Africans on Day 1 of the 2nd test!
Now, I knew if India batted through day 2, we’ll be in the driver’s seat. Moreover, it was a chance to see Sachin bat after a long long time. I remembered watching him score his 1st hundred at Eden against West indies in 2002, and something told me, he will score another one.
So, I bunked office, so did my father… we headed to Eden. He told me how he had once won a lottery in college and got a ticket the holy Cricket ground.
Just as we entered, Sehwag unleashed hell on the bowlers. The annoying girl was missing, and the crowd was intimidating the Visitors. The bowlers didn’t even dare to stare at the batsman after a bouncer. Then Gambhir got run out. Murali Vijay looked uncomfortable. He finally managed to nick one to the keeper. The moment Murali Vijay got out, the crowd went wild.... the smoke cleared... dust settled... And God appeared!

What followed is History. The crowd was euphoric, and I, after several years of following the game, almost perfectly predicted the outcome for the first 2 days.

The day faded away with chants of “Sa-chin… Sa-chin…” I experienced some Vintage Test Cricket, and ya, I had watch an IPL game, Test Cricket is like Premium Scotch, T20 is cheap soda pop!

PS: Sudhir Kumar Chaudhary was with us in the gallery on both the days, blowing the conch shell and waving the Indian Flag!