Bengali is the mother tongue in Calcutta, which is home to Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly and, along with neighbouring Bangladesh, this part of the world lives and breathes cricket.

Sometimes as many as 100,000 cricket-mad fans pack into Eden Gardens - and any cricket fan in this area will tell you they were here in March 2001 when one of the game's great fairy-tales was written.

The strutting, apparently invincible Australians had their hosts following on, 274 runs behind. Then VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid embarked on one of the most remarkable rescue operations ever known - and Harbhajan Singh spun his side to victory on the final day.

Mohammad Azharuddin made his Test debut here and after seven Tests could boast a proud batting average of 107.5 at Eden Gardens.

In 1999, after Saeed Anwar's brilliant unbeaten 188 had turned the match in Pakistan's favour, Shoaib Akhtar and Saqlain Mushtaq bowled out India as the visitors won by 46 runs.