Calcutta and Cricket. These go together almost as well as Calcutta and football or mishti doi. And the Eden Gardens indeed occupy a proud place in Calutta's love affair with sports.

The Calcutta Cricket Club is the oldest surviving cricket club outside the British Isles. The first organized cricket match was played on the "maidan" opposite the Raj Bhavan. From this beginning, the club ground was shifted around in the neighborhood commons until it finally dropped anchor at the present site of Eden Gardens in 1864.

Legend has it that the parkland originally belonged to Rani Rashmoni from whom it passed on to the hands of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar. Another version tells us that it was an extension of the neighbourhood commons known as the 'maidan'. During the Raj, the estate was in the possession of the Governor General, Lord Auckland, and two of the family members - the Eden sisters - nursed and nurtured the huge area into a beautiful parkland. In time, the garden was "...gifted to the citizens of Calcutta for recreation and enjoy- ment." And, most appropriately, the name "Eden" stuck to provide the cricket lovers with the pleasures of the lost world.

Today, Eden Gardens include an indoor cricket stadium, two indoor sports complexes and the All India Radio building. The area is ample enough to include a park, a pond and a pagoda.

Modern-day Eden is a delightful blend of the old and the new. The Club House, named after the former Chief Minister B. C. Roy is a sleek, modern architecture that houses the CAB offices, a medical unit, a sports shop, a library, the players' dressing rooms, dining rooms and conference halls. On the first floor is the VIP viewing gallery where 3500 complimentary ticket holders can enjoy their cricket in comparative exclusiveness. The air-conditioned sound-proof Press box has the novelty of being suspended from the top tier of the Club House.

The huge amphitheatre holds 93,000 plus, has 27 private viewing boxes in between the upper and the lower tiers. These air-conditioned chambers are leased to companies and are provided with a color TV set, a radio set, a telephone and a refrigerator in addition to 16 seats per box. The giant scoreboard built in the 50s on the lines of the one at Sydney has now been replaced by a computerised electronic score-board to keep up with the times. Four mammoth towers beaming mega-watts of electric power have changed the skyline of Gardens for ever.

They stand as sentinel to keep Eden bright and radiant in the 21st century.

- J.Vinay