Playing out in Eden stands: ‘killer’ match

Calcutta, April 30: Everyone saw Priyanka Chopra in a tight blue top pompoming for Kolkata Knight Riders from Shah Rukh Khan’s B1 box.

Very few saw another KKR supporter in a red-and-white check shirt clapping quietly from Row 12 on the right hand side in the Club House lower tier. Sourav Ganguly. Eden Gardens tonight discussed Dada and admired Piggychops.

There was a buzz of the Prince of Calcutta there somewhere in the stadium and “Dada kothay? Dada kothay” echoed across the stands. But what they saw was the “Desi girl” in all her beauty going berserk in the stands.

The game at the Eden today was being played at the galleries and not out on the greens. Yes, KKR won the match against King’s XI Punjab by eight wickets and went to the top of the IPL 4 leaderboard again with 10 points, but when you have Priyanka as the home team’s cheerleader, it’s difficult to concentrate on the cricket.

The Mallyas have Deepika Padukone in kiss-and-clap mode. Shane Warne’s spun in a henna-tattooed Elizabeth Hurley. The Don had to respond, right? Shah Rukh simply brought Priyanka. “My cheergirl!” he called her.

Flying in with her Don today in a chartered flight from Mumbai and then accompanying the KKR boss to the grounds, Priyanka had predicted “a killer night”. Looking fetching in the blue top with the Knight Riders logo embossed on it, Priyanka didn’t have to work hard to work the crowd. And not just because she was jumping on the balcony with those red pom poms in her hands — “I love the pom poms!”

She was also waving the purple flag, leading the Mexican waves, counting down the timeout break, taking pictures with a DSLR camera and then instantly uploading them on the web from her Twitter account... phew, she was the showstopper all right.

Shah Rukh stepped back, standing well inside the balcony and letting Priyanka be the face of the starry cheer camp. Sometimes letting her hair fall on her shoulders, sometimes tying it up in a bun, sometimes simply banging the head to the music, the former Miss World was red hot in the last evening of April. In fact, some times in her excitement, Don’s junglee billi was almost falling on to the B block lower tier.

Wonder whether those people seated there were even aware of a cricket match underway in front of them.

As Gautam Gambhir led the team to victory, another southpaw, another KKR captain, was there at the CAB president’s box in the Club House watching the match. Yes, Ganguly might have been out there in the Club House lower tier briefly but he did watch the entire match on Saturday at the ground itself. Cue for the anti-KKR pro-Sourav camp now to back their team again.

All Dada and Shah Rukh now need to do is walk about 25 yards each, one to the right and one to the left, and do the big hug. For Calcutta. For the Eden.