Kolkata turns blue as all roads lead to Eden Gardens

KOLKATA: A sleepy winter morning made way for a noisy evening in the city as 67,000 fans at Eden Gardens and thousands others at city hangouts cheered for Team India that faced England in the third and final match of the one day series on Sunday.
Sunday morning started on a sleepy note with the minimum temperature dipping to 13.1degrees Celsius. But, as the day progressed, Kolkatans moved out of the warmth of the quilts and hea ded to Eden Gardens.Long before the stadium gates opened at 11.30am -with two hours to go for the first ball to be bowled -hundreds of fans had already queued up in front of each of the 19 gates.The cops, who were still making their last-minute plans to tackle the crowd, seemed to be caught unawares by the sudden surge of people.
The roads leading to the venue were a riot of colour and sound -fans got their faces painted in tricolour, blew whistles and waved flags as they walked and ran briskly towards the stadium.
Akansha Raj, a banking executive from Burdwan, was one of the firsts to reach the ground. “I took a day off from my office on Friday and was in Kolkata to buy the tickets. I waited in a queue for more than an hour and got two tickets. I was so excited that I came here even before the gates were opened. I love Dhoni and I didn't want to miss a single sight of him -entering the ground or practising on the field,“ said Raj, who was at the Eden Gardens with a friend. The stands were almost full even before the two teams started warming up. By the time the public address system started making announcements around 12.45pm, Eden had found its mojo. As Virat Kohli came up to the pitch for the toss at 1pm, half an hour before the start of the match, the crowd roared. As Kohli waved back in response, the roar only got louder.
As the match began, there were still hundreds others either waiting to enter the ground or looking for the pri zed tickets. A few local fruit sellers were seen roaming around the Shahid Minar area selling tickets in black -from Rs 500 to Rs 3000. A fruit seller near Red Road was seen asking for Rs 2000 for a membership ticket that cannot be sold.
Engineering students Rishav Gupta and Subham Naskar were among those who had no tickets but had turned up in blue jerseys.“We were dying to watch India play. I tried my best to buy tickets online but they were not available. Yesterday , I came to the counter but the tick ets were sold out. Today I found a contact who works at CAB. He has promised to give me two tickets sometime during the match,“ said Gupta, when TOI met him outside gate No. 3 around 2.45pm. By then, England had lost their first wicket and were at 102 after the end of 18 overs.
Many caught live action at malls, restaurants, pubs, homes and on smartphones.By evening, the South City Mall was packed with fans busy watching the match on the big screen.