All Fools’ Day. Not a nice day to be believers, but some 35,000 still turned up at the Eden Gardens on Thursday, sure that the time had come — time for one emphatic turnaround. This time they were not fooled.
As the cheering fans, which included Team Kolkata boss Shah Rukh Khan and his Bollywood bandwagon, left the glare of the Eden lights melting into the night and carrying home the afterglow, the high-decibel ‘Korbo, Lorbo, Jitbo’ had been saved from slipping into irrelevance in another season of the Indian Premier League. The Knights are back and believing — and what better way than on the wings of a soaring ‘Dada’!
Sourav Ganguly broke out of the gathering gloom around him and the Team Kolkata with a significant innings of 88. The 54-ball knock, which had nine boundaries and five towering sixes, did not just help his team tame defending champions Team Hyderabad and resurrect hopes of a berth in the semi-finals, but also clear some of the air of skepticism over his own role in this frenetic world of Twenty20 cricket.
Is Dada still good enough? The doubts have been emphatically doused for now. Of course, in a team game like cricket there have to be others. David Hussey, who during the pre-match media meet on Wednesday, had expressed disappointment that he wasn’t contributing more to the Team Kolkata cause, chipped in with a useful 31 while the bowlers came to the party with a bagful of tricks.
Short-pitched deliveries and toe-crunching yorkers, the spin and the arm-ball, subtle changes in the line of attack, slower ones... They mixed them up nicely to deny the daunting batting line-up of Team Hyderabad. Left-arm spinner Murali Kartik and the extra-quick Shane Bond stood out even in the midst of what was a fine collective job.
In this frenzied format, things can change very quickly — and that over from Pragyan Ojha was surely the defining moment.
The left-arm spinner, who used to turn out for neighbouring Orissa at the junior level before he moved to Hyderabad, was clearly troubling Hussey with the turn he was extracting but once Sourav crossed over to take strike, he was suddenly bowling to the Team Kolkata skipper’s strength. Gilly should have known better.
Playing with the spin, Sourav hoisted him for three sixes. The terraces went crazy, and the Bollywood batch on the super-hospitality stand realized once more what Eden was all about. Waving flags and jumping with joy, the likes of Sushmita Sen, Raveena Tandon-Thadani, Arjun Rampal and Hrithik Roshan’s wife, Sussanne, came to the party. As did Gauri Khan and her two children, Aryan and Suhana.
Their dad, having flown in on a private jet from Goa where he was busy with his latest production — probably why he did not find the time to change into his team jersey — was by then in the team dugout to share it all with the Team Kolkata core.
Even as his first T20 century loomed large, Sourav perished in the same over, trying to send another one soaring over the midwicket fence, but he had already done the damage from a Deccan point of view.
If inconsistency has been the bane of Team Kolkata, and is bound to keep its followers on tenterhooks, the bug has certainly bit Team Hyderabad as well. With one of the best batting line-ups in the tournament, and a reasonably balanced bowling attack, many would have put their money on them retaining the trophy. It will be an uphill task from here.
For Team Kolkata, it has found a foothold again but the fickle format that is T20 and its own unpredictability means fans will have their fingers crossed. But then, there is a lot to look forward to. Two more home matches over the next few days, against laggards Team Mohali and Team Delhi, where there is also a score to settle. Sourav and Co. could all but clinch it here.
At least in Kolkata, they won’t be short on believers.
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