In a quirk of fate, Ankit Keshri was only the 12th man for East Bengal in the fateful game last Friday, and came on to the field a little earlier as team member Arnab Nandi took a break.
"He was not in the playing eleven. Railways all-rounder Nandi had gone out for some reason, and Kesri went in as a replacement. Only a few overs were left in the match," said a Cricket Association of Bengal official, narrating the sequence of events during the senior knockout tournament match between East Bengal and Bhowanipore culminating in Keshri's fatal head injury.
Left-arm pacer Sourav Mandal was bowling then, and the batsman spooned a high catch towards the cover. Mandal ran on his follow through, while Keshri - patrolling the sweeper cover - also charged towards the ball.
They collided and Mondal's knee hit the back of Keshri's head near the ear.
"He fell unconscious, and blood started oozing out of his mouth. I rushed in, and found he was not breathing. I tried to resuscitate him by giving mouth-to-mouth respiration. His teeth were firmly clinched. And I had to apply lot of force to open his mouth."
"After a few seconds, he started breathing again. It is as if he had come to life form the dead," said Shiv Sagar Singh, a Bengal discard, and now an East Bengal player.
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"The doctors stationed in the ambulance close to the ground then ran in and after examination, sent him to the hospital close to the ground," said Singh.
The 20-year-old promising opener, who earlier led the Bengal Under-19 team, died of cardiac arrest at a private hospital on Monday.