Trisha Ghosal in Manchester
There’s a kind of melancholy that only the Kolkata Maidan can cure.
The soft slush of dew under your shoes on a December morning. The first crack of bat on ball echoing across fog-laced fields. The unmistakable scent of burning leaves somewhere in the distance. Little kids in oversized jerseys chasing dreams on patches of grass barely big enough for boundaries. And a younger version of me, cross-legged under a gulmohar tree with a packet of chola badaam (roasted groundnuts and chickpeas) in hand, watching a random club match with a seriousness that rivalled Eden Gardens.
That version of me resurfaced today — not in Kolkata, but at Urmston Sports Club, tucked quietly into Greater Manchester’s suburbia. The match? Dileep Vengsarkar XI vs SPCA XI. The weather? The kind of classic English greyness that makes you miss your mother’s mustard fish curry and a proper monsoon power cut.
I hadn’t come for this match. In fact, I didn’t even know it was happening until my colleague Debasis Sen took me to shoot an interview there and told me the added perk was we can watch the local game. I walked in without expectation. No media passes, no press box. Just a bench, a drizzle, and a heart carrying the weight of 5,000 miles of homesickness.
But then the game began.
No commentary. No broadcasters. Just leather on willow, murmurs of field placements, the occasional cheer from a mate, and the constant whisper of light rain. It was cricket in its most elemental form — young men giving it their all, chasing a sport that has built empires and broken hearts, but also stitched together continents and childhoods.
I sat there with no agenda. No deadline. No player to interview. I simply watched.
And in those moments, something shifted.
Because somewhere in those quiet overs, I saw the Maidan again. I saw a boy with taped tennis balls and borrowed pads. I saw Richa Ghosh once diving full length as a wiry 11-year-old with fire in her eyes. I saw Akash Deep bowling with a run-up longer than the pitch, trying to land one yorker on a mat rolled over dusty soil. I saw dreams — raw, reckless, real.
I realised then: this is why I became a journalist. Not just to tell stories of superstars under floodlights, but to find poetry in the places the camera doesn’t pan. To reconnect with the girl who once fell in love with a game while licking salt off peanuts on a winter morning in Kolkata.
Travelling with sport can be adrenaline. But it is also ache. It’s waking up in unfamiliar hotel rooms with the same clothes in your suitcase and different skies outside your window. It’s cheering from the media box but crying quietly in the Uber home. It’s living the dream, but often without the comforts of home.
Today, cricket gave me that comfort back.
Urmston gave me that comfort back.
A match I didn’t plan to watch became a memory I’ll carry. Just as I carry Kolkata in my bones. Just as I carry every silent morning on the Maidan. Just as I carry that packet of chola badaam I never finish, because I always eat too slowly — lost in the magic of the game.
Cricket, I fell in love with you again. And thank you for always finding me, even when I’m far from home.
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