Eden Gardens has been one of the oldest cricket stadiums in India. Having its significance from the early British rule, its stands tall, carrying the grey hairs of the old architecture, with steel brackets hanging from the structure in some places. It is a stadium that still relies on Broadcast towers for aerial views. And it is still the stadium that took care of one of the oldest manual scoreboards of a cricket field. The stadium holds more than head-to-head stats or a mere pitch report. It carries history of a club's repeated attempts, Bengali Bhadrolok challenging British dominance with their bats, and guarding part of heritage as an old school. The naming of Eden Gardens: English documents vs Bengali belief The token of gift from Babu Rajchandra Das For the Bengali, Janbazar's Rani Rashmoni and her husband, Babu Rajchandra Das, hold immense respect, not just for their welfare activities but also for not bending blindly to colonial activities a number of times despite the colonial rule. And as per the Bengali traditions and belief, it was Rajchandra Das who gifted a piece of land to Lord George Eden Auckland, which later became the Eden Gardens. As per believed history, Rajchandra Das gave a piece of adjacent land to Maidan, popularly known as Marh Bagan, as a token of a gift to Lord Auckland after his sisters Fanny and Emily assisted the Das family to cure the third daughter's fatal illness. The two failed efforts Credits: Wikimedia Common However, as per British council documents, the Eden Gardens became a renovated version of the Auckland Circus Gardens. Notably, Calcutta, Now Kolkata was the second place after England where cricket was played. The first ever cricket club of India, Calcutta Cricket Club (1792), was looking for a place to play the sport, which was initially restricted to the British. The Calcutta Club played their first match near the Government House, or the present Raj Bhawan, in 1804, when the British civil servants and military officers played the game. However, it was not an official one to record. The first attempt to get a field was at Maidan, near Fort William What Maidan looks like is a big oval that used to be a huge land of almost 5 square kilometers (about 1,200 acres), occupying the present-day Dharmatala or the Esplanade, covering New Alipore to tolly Nullah in the south, mostly near Kidderpore. In 1825, the Calcutta Cricket Club got a plot of land in between Fort William and the Government House. by 1841, they tried to put up a fence to protect the land and the British Army protested. They saw the club’s fenced land as an encroachment on military territory, and by 1853 the matter had escalated enough that the Chief Magistrate wrote to the Secretary of the Government of Bengal about this “forceful occupation.” Later, as their official second attempt, they bought a piece of land worth Rs 1000, and fenced it. But the government planned to pass a new road to Fort William through the stadium. Despite the club's repeated appeal, the government turned it down. The making of Eden Gardens Park Old Eden Gardens; Credit: James Kerr Eden Gardens Park came before the stadium came. The then governor-general of India, Lord Auckland, has proposed to create a massive public space to "improve the town" and provide health and comfort to the public. A part, mostly the Northern part of Maidan, near the Hoogly river, was assigned to build the park. Well, it had conflicts—the military didn't want to lose their grip, while the aristocrats wanted to use it for recreation. And the primary interest came from the Eden sisters—Emily and fanny, who were tired of Calcutta's heat. Both of them took charge of creating a garden, planting several giant trees and putting benches in it. As both the Eden sisters were involved in the planning, it was named the Eden Gardens, but in 1841 after the unceremonious departure of Lord Auckland following the Anglo-Afghan war. The final successful attempt for the stadium The Calcutta Cricket Club finally found its official ground permission in 1864. they were allowed to use the eastern side of the Eden Gardens to play cricket. A specific proposal for a new building was initially rejected in 1868. However, permission to build a permanent wooden pavilion was officially granted by the Government of India's Military Department via letter number 699 on April 19, 1871. And the letter had the risk that if the government asks to uninstall the stands, the club has to do so without compensation. The Bhadrolok fight back- rise of different clubs As said earlier, CCC was for the white-skinned. They mocked the brown natives as physically weak or effeminate. And to answer this, it took a century later; The Town club was introduced in 1884, by Saradranjan Ray, the granduncle of director Satyajit Raj and the brother of Upendrakishore Ray. Saradaranjan wrote the first cricket manual in Bengali, "Cricket Khela," in 1899. It was published through his own firm, S. Ray & Co., which he had established to provide affordable sports equipment to Indians. Notably, in the mid-1880s, a calcutta Town club player Narendranath Dutta, took 7 wickets for 20 runs at Eden Gardens against the CCC—Narendranath Dutta, who later became Swami Vivekananda. The era of mass expansion (1980-2020s) The Eden Gardens was initially a pasture ground that eventually became the mecca of cricket. The stadium underwent its first major facelift to host the 1987 World Cup final. The capacity was expanded dramatically from approximately 40,000 to over 100,000 with the addition of multi-tiered, covered stands supported by 42 massive columns. Floodlight towers were installed for the CAB Diamond Jubilee five-nation tournament, allowing for day-night matches. A record crowd of over 110,000 spectators witnessed the controversial World Cup semi-final between India and Sri Lanka in 1996. Modernization and the ICC Era (2011–Present) Ahead of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, Eden Gardens underwent a comprehensive, two-year, multi-million-dollar renovation to meet modern ICC standards for safety, infrastructure, and spectator comfort. As part of this overhaul, the stadium’s capacity was deliberately reduced from around 94,000 to approximately 68,000, allowing for individual plastic seating, wider concourses, and improved amenities. The renovation included the construction of a new clubhouse, upgraded player facilities, a redesigned exterior façade, modern media boxes, and enhanced safety features. However, delays in completing the work led to a major setback, with the venue losing a scheduled India vs. England World Cup match, a moment that drew widespread criticism and attention. In the years following 2011, Eden Gardens continued to blend tradition with modernity, adding features such as the iconic stadium bell to mark the start of play and naming stands after legends like Sourav Ganguly and Jhulan Goswami. Manual scoreboard—the haunting heritage of Eden Gardens New Manual scoreboard; Credit: Cricketgully/Ritwika Nag Eden Gardens is one of the stadiums that has still kept the heritage of the manual scoreboard alive. In India, Kanpur's Green Park Stadium has the manual scoreboard. Approximately 10 meters high and 25 meters wide, the board is situated right behind the D block. How does it work? Inside the manual score board, 2023; Credits: Getty Images Well, what looks like a board, is a three-story building requiring 4 to 6 skilled people working behind the dark wooden structure in perfect sync with the game. The top floor of the three story building manages the teams, the middle handles the batters and the lower part handles the bowlers and the total scores. There is one man or two, who is called the "runner," who is continuously on the transistor radio, taking live updates and instructing those inside the box. Apart from that, there are peepholes called "Viewports" from where the operators watch the umpire’s signals through these holes to know when to change a number. The components The basic three requirements of a manual scoreboard are Sliders, Rotos, and canvas blinds, even though they don't exist much these days. Sliders: These are normally the wooden planks where players' names are written. When a player comes to the field, the operator slides in the plate. Currently, these are thick cardboards. The Rotors of the number plate: For the score, wickets, and overs, there are large wooden or metal drums (like a giant version of an old car's odometer). The operators turn a handle or pull a chain to rotate the drum until the correct digit (0–9) faces the crowd. Canvas blind: Numbers are painted on a long roll of canvas. The operator pulls a cord to roll the canvas up or down to show the new number. The savior in modern days The board has actually been kept as a heritage. It needs maintenance, mainly greasing and coloring. During the 2019 Pink ball Test debut in India against Bangladesh, the board was painted pink and the names were written in white. However, it came to the rescue when the electrical scoreboard failed in the 1987 World Cup during a group-stage match between New Zealand and Zimbabwe on October 23. With the digital display dead, the stadium operators had to rely entirely on the manual scoreboard to keep the crowd of nearly 100,000 people informed of the score. The Phantom Operator legend Old manual score board in the early 21st; Credits: The Telegraph But is the scoreboard haunted? As per traditional belief, in the 1990s, a scoreboard changed itself, which proved to be right. It was a foggy evening, creating the perfect haunting scene. When a wicket fell, a new batter was walking from the pavilion to the pitch. Normally, the manual scoreboard operators would slowly and manually slide the player’s nameplate into position once the batter reached the crease. But in this story, before the batter even arrived, the nameplate for that player suddenly dropped or slid into place on its own, with a loud metallic sound. It appeared to happen without human control, or at least faster than physically possible for the operators. Moments later, the batter got out without scoring any runs, on the first ball faced—what cricket calls a golden duck. Because of the eerie timing, fans came to see it as a bad omen—or folklore would have it, the “ghost” of Eden Gardens predicting the dismissal, not causing it. The decline of Eden Gardens Credit: Cricketgully/Ritwika Nag The portion from Park Street to Esplane lits up during the IPL every year, the only time crowd gathers in front. The last time Eden gardesn hosted a test match before the India-South Africa first Test was the pnk ball Test in 2019. Its not that the stadium get enough white ball matches. Even the IPL 2025 semi final and final was shifted to Ahmedabad. This was the stadium that hosted the Brazilian legend Pelé in 1977 for a friendly match against Mohun Bagan. And now if feels like a heaving senior. The BCCI follows a policy of rotating international matches among 15–20 Test venues and 25–30 white-ball venues to ensure equal opportunity for newer state associations, reducing the frequency with which iconic grounds like Eden Gardens, Wankhede, and Chepauk host matches to once every 3–5 years. Critics argue this has favored newer venues such as Ahmedabad, which hosted major finals like IPL 2025, leading to allegations of bias. Eden Gardens has also faced issues over pitch quality, infrastructure delay past crowd trouble, and high ticket prices affecting attendance. Currently the stadium has been assigned to host 7 matches in the 2026 ICC men's T20 World Cup, which includes a Super 8 match and semifinal if Pakistan is not playing.