Calcutta’s Miracle

Eden Gardens is to India, what Lords is to England. A stadium filled with stories and history, none more memorable than those 5 glorious days in 2001.

~The true mark of a champion is not that they are never knocked down, but they have the strength to get back up when it seems least likely

There are moments in sports where everything seems to fall into place, where the stars align, and nothing can go wrong. It went the exact opposite for India for the first three and a half days of this test match.

Australia, batting first put up a massive total of 445, to which India could only reply with a mere 171, VVS Lakshman top scoring with a gritty 59. Australia, confident of extending their 16 game win streak, enforced the follow on, forcing India to bat again, this time, the stars did align for India.

VVS Lakshman walked in at 52/1, India still trailing by over 200 runs, even the most optimistic of fans would have accepted the inevitable by now, but not Lakshman, him and Dravid batted the whole of day 4 without losing a wicket, and by the time Dravid departed, India had reached a mammoth total of 629, but the show was far from over. One of the best sights in sports, is when an individual/team on the ropes, finds their feet and pulls off a heist, and India were looking to do just that.

With just over 2 sessions to bowl out a formidable batting line up, the test looked to be moving towards a stalemate, and any Indian fan halfway through day 3 would have taken that result in a heartbeat, but now, there was hope, hope of one of, if not the greatest test match victory of all time.

Harbhajan Singh bowled 30.3 overs over the next few hours, as the nation came to a standstill, sensing a miracle on the horizon. Singh picked up 6 wickets, including the last one of the match, Glenn McGrath, Leg before wicket, sending a full capacity crowd in the Eden Gardens into a frenzy, and proving to a nation that this team was something special.