Playing at Edens is once in a lifetime opportunity: Gavaskar

Kolkata, Feb 23 (UNI) The Lord's may be regarded as the mecca of cricket but former Team India skipper Sunil Gavaskar feels no place in the world can match the grandness of Eden Gardens as playing at the historic stadium is an opportunity of a lifetime which no cricketer should miss.

Gavaskar regretted that he could not muster more than a hundred at the ground while receiving the ''Lifetime Achievement Award'' for contribution in cricket by Calcutta Sports Journalists Club last night.

The Little Master said, ''The ovation you get after hitting a ton at the Eden Gardens is unparallel. You don't have such an experience at any other ground in the world once you hit a hundred.'' However, he said playing in Australia and West Indies was also ''fantastic''.

He shared his experience of Kolkata fans' extreme reactions to victory and defeat, saying failure of a favourite player at Eden Gardens was common and ''not deliberate as fans feel for you, like you, love you and want you to perform for the sake of cricket.'' ''Kolkata fans understand cricket and appreciate when you perform well,'' he remarked. ''The reception you get at the ground and outside is a lifetime experience,'' said the member of the 1983 World Cup winning team.

When cinestar Mithun Chakraborty eulogised him in Bengali about a cricket match they played in New Jersey soon after winning the World Cup in 1983, Gavaskar said language was no barrier as he knew better Bangala than son Rohan, who stays in Kolkata and plays cricket for Bengal.

Gavaskar, the first bastman in the world to score over 10,000 runs in Test Cricket, said he learnt Bangala after shattering window panes of a Bengali family in his home town in Maharastra.

''Our wickets were a gate of a garage. After breaking the window panes of the building, the Banerjee family, the owners, instead of driving us out offered ice-cold water,'' he reminisced.

UNI