Caught Adam, bowled Eve

The fascinating story of how the search for Adam and Eve led to the world's bitterest cricket rivalry.

The tech world never had it so good. First came the revelation that Adam and Eve didn’t live in the same era. Cutting-edge technology was used to isolate and label several thousand mutations, through which genetic links and the building blocks of the Y-chromosome were identified. A detailed analysis of this Y-chromosome revealed that the two were strangers from different time zones. Then came the voice of dissent, which was also supported by technology. "While there's no proof of Adam and Eve having been married or having officially registered their marriage, the possibility that they were seeing each other is clearly brought out through carbon dating," claimed the idealist.

The scientist scoffed. "The state-of-the-art imaging technologies that we are using just can't be disputed. Besides our satellite measurements, we also have incredible proof through LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), an advanced aerial imaging technique, the results of which have helped us locate the Garden of Eden. And there is no sign of either Eve or of Adam’s missing rib."

"But what about the half-eaten apple thrown away by Adam? It's the world's first piece of trash," said the idealist emphatically. "We made use of ground-penetrating radar, Computed Tomography (CT) scans and also plied robotic drones into the project, through which we unearthed several middens – or old-world trash dumps. We then measured the phosphorous levels in the soil, but," the scientist shook his head, "our efforts didn’t bear fruit." The idealist decided to take on another approach to prove his theory. "The Y chromosomes get passed down only from father to son, so if Adam's gene pool contained mitochondrial genome, he had to have gotten it from his mother – Sir, you need to be looking for a mummy." And thus began the search for the world's first mummy. DNA analysis, mass spectrometry, protein analysis and several other techniques were employed to research the findings. "We need to stop here,” pleaded the scientist. “Not until we dig up all of Eden and plough through every inch of ground. Remember, only when we set sight on that mummy swathed in bandages shall we call it a wrap,” the idealist said angrily.

So laser scanning reality capture methods were used to get more details of the mummy. But the resultant 3D geometric mesh yielded nothing. Finally, a group of British researchers decided to get to the bottom of it all - and found out that the scientist had been looking in the wrong place all along. Instead of trying to locate the Garden of Eden, he had accidentally dug up Eden Gardens in Kolkata. However, two very interesting discoveries were made. The first was an ancient scroll that contained undecipherable text. On using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), the researchers realised that the text had a curiously strange resemblance to something the cricketing world was familiar with. One of the researchers – also a freelance member of the Barmy Army – let out a whoop. “This is the origin of the Duckworth-Lewis formula that’s being used to decide truncated one-day matches – no wonder it’s undecipherable.” Besides, with the BCCI not yet under the RTI (Right To Information) ambit, further attempts to decipher Duckworth-Lewis was discouraged and the system was deemed fit to be followed worldwide.

The second discovery was even more significant - it was an urn filled with Mishti Doi (a traditional Bengali dessert) that looked slightly burnt, with the word aashun - meaning 'come' in Bengali – inscribed on it. It is not known whether it was a formal proposal from Adam, asking for Eve’s hand in marriage or asking her to lend a hand for dinner, but in their haste to take back a piece of Indian history – something they were really good at – the team from UK took the urn back home, quickly changed aashun to the Ashes and taunted the Aussies with the lure of sweet success. The rest, as they unfortunately say, is history.