Ajinkya Rahane to reporters: “We would love to see some spin on this wicket but again, no complaints.”
Sujan Mukherjee to RevSportz: “As long as I’m here, Eden Gardens pitch will not change.”
Early days at the 2025 IPL, but the murmurs from the Kolkata Knight Riders camp over the Eden surface seemingly has the potential to snowball into an outcry, if results don’t go their way. Mukherjee, the Eden curator, is not going to budge.
KKR were beaten, rather hammered, by Royal Challengers Bengaluru, in the IPL opener on their home patch on Saturday. Among their bowlers, only Sunil Narine made an impact, conceding just 27 runs in his four overs for the wicket of Devdutt Padikkal. His spin-bowling partner, Varun Chakravarthy, returned figures of 1/43 from his four overs. Together, Phil Salt and Virat Kohli unlocked KKR’s spin secret, and after the match their captain, Rahane, called for more spin-friendly pitches.
“We would love to see the pitch helping the spin bowlers but again, this wicket was under cover for the last one-and-a-half days,” he said at the post-match press conference, adding: “Both the spinners we have, the quality they have, they can bowl in any kind of wicket and I am sure they are confident as well.”
Mukherjee ruled out any change. “As per the IPL rules and regulations, franchises have no say over the pitch,” he told RevSportz. “Ever since I have taken charge (as Eden curator), the pitches here have been like this. It was like this in the past. Things haven’t changed now, and it will not be altered in the future.”
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Mukherjee was given charge of the ground and pitches by then Cricket Association of Bengal president Sourav Ganguly after Prabir Mukherjee had walked out following a washed out T20I between India and South Africa on October 8, 2015. Sujan overhauled the centre square and over the past 10 years, the Eden strips have earned praise for their sporting nature.
Even in the first game, Josh Hazlewood bent his back and hit the bat, and the ’keeper’s gloves, hard. And not only Salt and Kohli, Rahane and Narine, too, revelled in their strokeplay during their 103-run second wicket partnership. Credit to the RCB bowlers, Hazlewood and Krunal Pandya in particular, for pulling things back.
Mukherjee pointed out to that. “Their (RCB) spinners took four wickets between them,” he said. “What did the KKR spinners do? Krunal Pandya got three wickets. Suyash Sharma turned the ball to castle Andre Russell.”
The KKR camp complaining about the Eden pitch, however, is nothing new. The team was on a winning spree last season and ‘surface tension’ didn’t arise. But the year before that, Nitish Rana, KKR’s stand-in captain, spoke about how every team in the IPL, except his side, had “home advantage”. Then also, Mukherjee had brushed it aside.
KKR are on the road now, with their next match being against Rajasthan Royals in Guwahati on Wednesday. Mukherjee confirmed that he has received no formal request from the team management as regards the nature of the pitch. Even if it comes before the defending champions’ next home fixture against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 3, it will not be entertained.
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