>> HEAVEN FOR 150 YRS,
TRACKING GLORY As India’s most historic ground celebrates 150 years of existence, a look at the events that led to its creation
The saga of Eden Gardens is inextricably woven into the history of Calcutta Cricket Club (CCC). The exact date of birth of CCC is yet to be deciphered, with various researchers highlighting various dates. Some mentioned 1825 while others focused on 1792. Both the warring groups produced written documents as evidence to substantiate their claims.
Ultimately, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, the acknowledged authority on cricket issues, authenticated the year of birth of CCC to be 1792 on the basis of a news item that appeared in the Madras Courier of February 23, 1792. The journal reported that a cricket match was played at Calcutta between Calcutta Cricket Club (CCC) and teams from Barrackpore and Dum Dum, bastions of British military forces at the time.
At present, a relevant document of evidence has surfaced which very specifically informs that a cricket club did exist in Calcutta in 1780. The evidence under consideration is a copy of a newspaper report that goes back to the late 18th century. The firstever English language newspaper in India, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, established in 1780, advertised itself as “a Weekly Political and Commercial Paper, Open to all Parties, but influenced by None” (sic).
In its 48th issue dated “from Saturday December 16 t o Saturday, December 23, 1780” Hicky’s Bengal Gazette reported that the “Gentlemen of Calcutta Cricket Club are getting themselves into Wind, and preparing to take the Field, for a very active Campaign…”
Although impeccable cricketing terms were used, the front page report headlined ‘News Extraordinary from the Cricket Club’ was not about cricket at all but a humorous reference to gastronomic delights that the CCC members indulged in. The pertinent point here is the authenticity of the existence of a cricket club at Calcutta in 1780. Thus the fact that a cricket club – surely, Calcutta Cricket Club – existed in 1780 at Calcutta cannot be denied.
This particular evidence enjoys much more credibility than the previous ones. The information emanating from an Englishlanguage newspaper, originating from Calcutta itself and edited by a Briton, conclusively proves that CCC was functioning in 1780, which means CCC was in existence at least seven years before the birth of the hallowed Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in England.
THE GROUND
Although the exact venue of the match or the matches played more than 20000 years ago cannot be pinpoint-pinpointed withh authentic proof, it is reason-reasonable to assume that the early cricket matches at Calcutta were played on the ‘commons’, known in local parlance as ‘maidan’, opposite the Governor’s House (now Raj Bhavan), in close vicinity of the present site of the Mohammedan Sporting Club ground.
However, it is certain thatt this hallowed plot of land was the place where teams representing Old Etonians and Calcutta took part in a cricket match on January 18 and 19, 1804. The participants in the match were drawn from civil servants based in Calcutta.
These casual games played at random surely did not herald the beginning of organised cricket in Calcutta. Erudite scholar and researcher, Late Narendranath Ganguly, in his well-documentedwell book, Calcutta Cricket Club: Its Origin and Development (Calcutta 1936), considers this match to be the first fully recorded cricket match played in Calcutta and, for the lack of any evidence to the contrary, in India as well. Another reference to an early cricket match played at Calcutta on March 23, 1836, may be traced to Emily Eden’s Letters from India (1938).
This particular match was played not on the ground south of the Governor’s House, where the 1804 match was played, but on the stretch of land between the Governor’s House and the Fort William, where the Customs ground is at present. The reason for the shift of venue was that by 1825 the men in East India Company’s Civil Services in Bengal had managed to acquire a more permanent setting. This new venue had the advantage of a pavilion under the shade of a banyan tree.
This banyan tree, which served as the pavilion, is still to be seen at the junction of the Plassey Gate Road and the Kingsway, now named Gostho Pal Sarani in memory of the legendary Indian soccer player of the 1920s. In 1841 the CCC was allowed to put up wooden enclosures around the ground.
However, by 1863, a portion of the ground was taken by the government for the construction of a new approach road to Fort William. This road is the Plassey Gate Road, the approach to Fort William from Gostho Pal Sarani. The members of CCC put up a fervent appeal to the LieutenantGovernor of Bengal to save their ground.
He promised to provide the cricketers with alternative arrangements and also to bear the expenses involved in setting up the new cricket ground. Though the tree did not come within the campus of the new cricket location, the benevolent cricket lover left the banyan tree undisturbed.
GROUND SHIFTED
Around late-April in 1864, the Calcutta Cricket Club moved over to the arena where the world famous Eden Gardens cricket ground resides today. But, by then, it was not possible to play any cricket before the start of the following winter. The first cricket match was played at Eden Gardens only after proper cricket facilities were laid in place. That happened in the last week of October, 1864.
Thus, Eden Gardens has been in continuous service of cricket for exactly 150 years till now. The property was in the treasured possession of the Governor-General Lord Auckland’s family. The huge area of land was personally nursed by the Eden sisters, Emily and Fanny, who were the sisters of the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, and converted it into a park in 1840.
The park came to be known as Auckland Circus Gardens. In time, the family presented the park to the citizens of Calcutta for recreation. Most appropriately, ‘Eden’, the family name of the Lord Auckland, stuck to the parkland to provide cricket lovers with the pleasures of a lost world. Even today after 150 glorious years the enjoyment of being at Eden is no less.