Kolkata Knight Riders’ triumph in IPL-7 was celebrated at the Eden Gardens here on Tuesday. But the programme — set to start at 1 p.m. — was marred by delays due to the late arrival of the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and one of the franchise owners, Shah Rukh Khan.
The programme lasted a little over an hour but KKR fans, whose numbers swelled to around 50,000, had to wait for over three hours to have a taste of the gala victory celebrations.
ApologiesKhan, who was delayed by a technical snag in his flight, kept tweeting apologies at regular intervals while the team itself arrived almost 90 minutes behind schedule.
The team was felicitated with gold rings, Alphonso mangoes, traditional Bengali sweets, medallions and more.
With the crowd comprising mainly of fans of the actor, the stadium erupted in a deafening roar when Khan made it to the dais where the felicitation ceremony was already on under the supervision of Ms. Banerjee. The Kolkata Police, which was one of the partners in organising the show alongside the Sports Department of West Bengal, Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Cricket Association of Bengal, had a trying time in controlling the fans.
It even had to resort to the occasional lathi-charge as the crowd grew restive due to the confusion surrounding the entry to the stadium.
The glittering IPL trophy, which KKR has won for the second time, was taken around the stadium on a caravan of open jeeps with captain Gautam Gambhir in the lead.
Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Shakib Al Hasan, Piyush Chawla, Surya Kumar Yadav, Patrick Cummins and coach Trevor Bayliss among others joined the cavalcade even as confetti was showered on them.
Later, Shah Rukh Khan, joined by Robin Uthappa and the rest of the team, did a victory lap with the trophy.
