There have been only four subsequent occasions when a team has won a Test match. That’s 4 out of about 2,500 tests in 149 years.However, when one talks about the third such example in the history of the sport, it is not just about statistics, not player profiles, not centuries or wickets. It’s about “atonement” over feelings of “guilt.”
It tells the story of a maniacal determination that grabs the bull by the scruff of his neck, the story of David telling Goliath to “never say the last word.”It’s like Marlowe in Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim,” a deeply philosophical exposition of the will to triumph beyond ambiguity, limitations, and the near impossibility of reaching a clear conclusion “until the last pitch is thrown!”Continuing Conrad’s analogy, the Eden Test is in many ways a battle between compassion and judgment; self and other.Sitting in the press box at the top of the BC Roy club for five days, these images flowed in the stream of consciousness – poetic justice unmistakably woven into a 171-run victory, after being bowled out for exactly the same total in the first innings!
It’s a game that’s etched in the memory – both for the characters and the drama: India skipper Sourav Ganguly infamously left his Australian counterpart Steve Waugh waiting to bowl; when the Bengal left-hander came on to bat, Waugh went ‘back and forth’ in the open off-side field.Given Ganguly’s penchant for hitting the offside, Waugh challenged him, encouraging him to play to his strengths while remaining confident in his credentials after 16 Test wins to stop his foes.After suffering a ten-wicket defeat in Mumbai a few days ago, India found themselves in trouble again on the third afternoon at the Eden Gardens.Painful memories of the 1996 India-Sri Lanka World Cup semi-final and the 1999 India-Pakistan Test match flooded the mind, making one wonder whether “blood, bottles and Bisleri” would befall Golgotha again (the title of a news magazine cover story).In both cases, the venerable Garden of Eden was transformed by fan riots over impending Indian defeats.But in 2001, fate had other plans on the banks of the Hooghly.This time, instead of throwing objects from the stands in frustration, 80,000 fans at the Eden Gardens threw empty plastic water bottles into the calypso, goading Ganguly’s men in their fervent pursuit of an improbable victory.This time, the “redemption” of the home fans and their team came through the heroics of two soft-spoken but never-say-die Crusaders.when Rahul Dravid and Pipe Laxman Swap the poncho for an Indian hat.Dravid, who had been in poor form until then, was absent from the post-match press conference and was the perfect foil for an Indian captain who exhorted the media to ask questions of hat-trick player Harbhajan Singh “in English only”, leaving the inarticulate player bewildered and the scribes distraught.A few minutes later, a calm and collected Waugh walked into the press box, “calm and all passion has been exhausted.”Cricketing justice at its finest.
