CWC 2023: South Africa has played 4 ODIs in Eden Gardens; how have they fared?

Despite both teams already having qualified for the semi finals, the clash between India and South Africa on November 5th in the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata is leading up to be one of the most high octane clashes of this tournament as both teams have shown tremendous consistency in performance in all departments of the game. 

South Africa has a longstanding relationship with the Eden Gardens ground. This was the ground in which they played their first game after a more than two-decade ban owing to apartheid in the country. They had lost a closely fought low scoring affair against India on November 10th 1991 by three wickets after having posted 177 owing to 50s by Tendulkar and Pravin Ambre. “We had been told that India truly loved their cricket, but we had no way of being able to comprehend it without seeing it for ourselves. It was, in a sense, an intimidating scene, but we were too busy pinching ourselves about the fact that it was happening.” Mike Procter, coach of that South Africa team, wrote in his memoir, Caught in the Middle. 

Two years later another low scoring thriller ensued in the ground. South Africa lost by 2 runs despite restricting India to 195 on November 24th 1993. On November 25th 2005 however, South Africa cruised to a 10-wicket win on tha back of a century by captain Graeme Smith in a chase of 189. The crowd even cheered for them as they were upset with Ganguly having lost his captaincy. They even played a game in the 2011 World Cup against Ireland in the Eden Gardens. This time however they posted 272 and managed a 131-run victory. Both the games in the 2019 world cup have also been rather low scoring. One would still have to wait for the pitch report.