kolkata the theory of probability says that if you flip a coin a large number of times it is more or less certain that half the time it will fall heads up and an equal number of time tails upindian cricket officials never indulged in coinflipping exercise while scheduling cricket tours to india or overseas but by some strange coincidence got the equation balanced nicely interestingly the indian team which played its 500th test in kanpur last week will be playing its 250th match on home soil on the hallowed turf of 150yearold eden gardens this means the 500 tests that india have played since 1932 are evenly split on homeandaway basisstrangely the last time new zealand played a test match at eden gardens was 51years ago five decades is too long a walk down memory lane for most of us none of the current players in either team was even born when the nawab of pataudi jr went out for the toss with his new zealand counterpart john reid on march 5 1965 the fourday test ended in a tame draw but not before the charismatic nawab treated the eden crowd to some exquisite strokeplay in making asplendid 153it remains tigers only test century at the iconic venue where fans later hailed him as banglar jamai bengals soninlaw after he married the popular bollywood star sharmila tagore in1969 that test also featured two other eden favourtites m ljaisimha and salim durranisadly six of the indian playing xi in that match tiger pataudi jaisimha ramakant desai baloo gupte hanumant singh and budhi kunderan have since passed away new zealand too have suffered two casualties bert sutcliffe and dick motz even the two umpires in that match santosh ganguli and bapu joshi are no longer around but then that was a different era when cricket was still largely an amateur sport not driven by television ratings cut to the present you have a modern stadium since 1965 eden has been given at least halfadozen facelifts a lordslike giant bell is the latest ornament to adorn edenwhen kapil dev rings that bell for the first time on friday to mark the beginning of the days play eden will add a slice of history to its already rich heritageoldtimers and eden regulars believe that if the two teams play quality cricket people will come in through the turnstiles to watch but given the mismatch between the two teams highlighted by the visitors meek capitulation in kanpur it will take a mighty effort from the kiwis to prevent another test and series loss