A galaxy of cricketing stars descended at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday as the Board of Control for Cricket in India celebrated its platinum jubilee, fondly tracing back a journey that began with the country's first-ever match against England at the Lord's in 1932.
A packed stadium saw some legendary Indian and Pakistani skippers -- Imtiaz Ahmed, Hanif Mohammed, Nari Contractor, Chandu Borde, Intikhab Alam, S Venkatraghavan, Bishen Singh Bedi, Gundappa Vishwanath, Ajit Wadekar, Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan, Dilip Vengsarkar, Kapil Dev, Ramiz Raja, Ravi Shastri and Waqar Younis -- being feted according to their seniority.
Present skippers of India and Pakistan -- Inzamam-ul-Haq, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid -- and Match Referee Clive Lloyd, were also feted on the occasion.
Among former Indian captains absent from the grand show were Sunil Gavaskar, away at an ICC meeting in Dubai, Kris Srikkanth and Mohammad Azharuddin, who was not invited.
When Sports Minister Sunil Dutt handed over the Platinum Jubilee memento, embossed with BCCI insignia on a silver salver, a tie and an exquisitely handcrafted Kashmiri shawl to the celebrities during the dinner-break of the day and night encounter, a packed stadium broke into cheers.
The BCCI came into being in 1931 and sent its squad to England the very next year with C K Nayudu as its captain.
BCCI, that took its fledgling steps with Delhi-based Antony D'Mellow as its first administrator, later had at its helm of affairs illustrious names like Pankaj Gupta, Maharaja of Gaekwad, M A Chidambaram, R Sriram, M Chinnaswamy, the Maharaja of Gwalior, Biswanath Dutta and Raj Singh Dungarpur, who incidentally was among the celebrity guests tonight.
As a show of solidarity, Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Shaharyar Khan presented a trophy to the BCCI. The trophy was accepted by Sunil Dutt on behalf of the Board.