An incident unprecedented in the annals of international cricket took place on Sunday at the famous Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi, the second oldest international cricket stadium still functional in India after Eden Gardens, Kolkata where players were forced to wear masks to protect themselves from air pollution during the second day of the third and final cricket Test between Sri Lanka and India.
It certainly was not a good advertisement for the richest cricket board in the world – the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for it gave the anti-Indian nations an opportunity to cash in on the situation and say how unsafe Delhi is as a venue to host international matches.
On television channels in India it has become a national debatable issue with one channel headlining it “Sri Lanka masks trigger debate” and saying that the acceptable air quality is 20 whereas it is currently on an average of over 520.
Sanjay Manjrekar, the former Indian Test cricketer and currently an international television commentator said that the incident of players playing in the middle with masks should have never taken place.
“The umpires should have taken the players off the field if the conditions were not conducive for play and brought them back once the air was clear,” said Manjrekar.
However for that to happen there were no clear guidelines laid down by the ICC for such an instance that happened for the first time at an international cricket match.
Thus it was quite understandable the ICC match referee David Boon and the two onfield umpires Nigel Llong and Joe Wilson being confused and unable to take a decision on how to react to the situation at hand. The umpires didn’t want to come off and it eventually led to a total of about 22 minutes of play being lost due to three separate stoppages.
Asanka Gurusinha, the Sri Lanka cricket manager said that going forward it was an interesting topic for the ICC to look into.
“I know that David Boon was talking to the ICC and they don’t have any numbers to work on. Most probably it might happen at the next ICC meeting where it will come down to medical reports and all of that,” said Gurusinha.
“I think it is the first time the ICC has faced this kind of situation. None of them knew about it, even the two umpires were struggling in the middle at that time.”
Manjrekar even said that there were thoughts expressed by the BCCI towards shifting the venue from Delhi to another venue as during this time of the year there was bound to be pollution in the air but he failed to understand why the change was not made in consultation with Sri Lanka Cricket. India are not short of international venues they have plenty at hand around 20 or so and the switch could have been made easily.
“Had BCCI made the change it could have saved them and everyone from the embarassment of players fielding in masks and advertising to the whole world how unsafe Delhi was to play international cricket,” Manjrekar said.
As it is with all Asian countries politics also plays a huge part in the hosting of international matches and Delhi, being the strong hold of the present acting president of the BCCI CK Khanna surely they would have wanted to host a Test match especially with five international teams touring India in the ongoing home season New Zealand, England, Bangladesh, Australia and Sri Lanka.
Khanna has been acting president of BCCI since January this year after president Anurag Thakur was sacked by the Indian Supreme Court for not complying with its orders.
The Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium has a rich history of hosting international matches since 1948 and should continue to host them but the timing has to be adjusted so that there won’t be a repetition to what happened on Sunday.
The winter period is between December and January where temperatures can drop from 25 degrees to 5 degrees and the quality of the air can be very poor due to the absence of any strong wind.
Sri Lanka had previously on one occasion played a Test match at this venue almost during the same period (December 10-14) 12 years ago but there were no reported incidents of any air pollution affecting the players.
According to the locals in Delhi the air pollution has become intense only in the past two years and forced people to wear masks to prevent them from constantly breathing the affected air.
The ICC match referee David Boon is certain to put it down in his match report about what took place and the ICC will have to bring it up at some point and draw a guideline to such occurrences and what action should be taken in the event of it happening again, like they did after the Phil Hughes tragedy where guidelines were brought in and it became applicable when Sadeera Samarawickrama took a knock on the forehead of his helmet fielding at short leg off a sweep shot essayed by Murali Vijay and suffered from mild concussion.
For years we are told there has been a public outcry for some action to be taken against air pollution which has been severe at times but unfortunately it has fallen on deaf ears. Although measures have been taken by the authorities to counter it the problem still persists with no tangible end to it in sight.
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