What is a centenary in the City of Joy without a willow-on-leather encounter? This was timed to perfection as the West Indies and Australia met for an encounter in the East Bengal stadium on 1 Mar 2020. Being prescient on the status of the global spread of Covid, both countries decided to outsource talent from the family of “The Old Number One”. So Yellows vs Reds it was! And in a rare departure, BCCI acceded to dilute most rules pretty much except that the teams could not play football.

So it was that we had Indrajit “Gillie” Ganguly and Debashis “Sammy” Mitra leading their rough and tough bands of sisters and brothers — and a kheera, aam, chanachurchaatwala who played for both sides — in a time-and-space warped sequence of pure joy.

While the ground for the match was organised by Rtn. Dr. Pranab Dasgupta the fellowship was sponsored by Rtn. Ashish Bagla. Rtn. Debjani Ghosh kept scores while Rtn. Debashish Biswas provided running commentary. Match was umpired by Rtn. Zul Hirji, Rtn. Samiran Sen and Rtn P.P. Dasgupta.

Scorekeepers recorded scores with finely manicured nails on heady foam of beer. High on Hibiki! Cheerleaders garnered cheers, but the skimpy skirts were missing. To get you back to the time warp. Julius Caesar [guess who?] is umpiring now. Yellows get CXXI runs. Reds need CXII to win. Reds — or was its Yellows – ask the chanachurchaatwala please — reached CXXI thanks to an artfully crafted miss at fine leg, followed by a masterly Gillie stumping. So now its dead heat. Super over! Match over! As they say in Bollywood, chalega!

E&OE, signed, Reporter AB4.
PS: Reporter AB4 has since been sacked by the bosses that be.