GUWAHATI: Trust Assam Cricket Association (ACA) to mess it up every time.
Chaos once again reigned supreme in ACA Barsapara Stadium here during the second India-South Africa T20I on Sunday.
If a snake crawling on the pitch during India’s innings wasn’t enough, the worst was yet to come when the stadium went into partial darkness as South Africa chased the massive goal of 238 , causing the game to be interrupted for the second time.
Right after the first ball Deepak Chahar in the third innings with South Africa reeling at 5/2, play came to a halt after one of the four floodlight towers went out, stopping play for 18 minutes.
All the players returned to the locker room and it took about six minutes for the lights to slowly come on one by one before play resumed.
Accusing it of a ‘technical glitch’, Assam Cricket Association secretary Devajit Saikia told PTI: ‘We have three parties handling the power aspect – our own 25-member team, a third party (outsourced) and the state electric department. Maybe it was a voltage problem, a technical problem.”
Saikia said the ACA used generators to power the game and did not rely on power supply from the food service.
The media contingent also faced a similar problem before the game as there was no light until a few overs in the game as the officials took hours to discover the foul.
Earlier during India’s innings, it was a snake’s turn to stop play for around five minutes in a rare sight in an international game.
Chaos once again reigned supreme in ACA Barsapara Stadium here during the second India-South Africa T20I on Sunday.
If a snake crawling on the pitch during India’s innings wasn’t enough, the worst was yet to come when the stadium went into partial darkness as South Africa chased the massive goal of 238 , causing the game to be interrupted for the second time.
Right after the first ball Deepak Chahar in the third innings with South Africa reeling at 5/2, play came to a halt after one of the four floodlight towers went out, stopping play for 18 minutes.
All the players returned to the locker room and it took about six minutes for the lights to slowly come on one by one before play resumed.
Accusing it of a ‘technical glitch’, Assam Cricket Association secretary Devajit Saikia told PTI: ‘We have three parties handling the power aspect – our own 25-member team, a third party (outsourced) and the state electric department. Maybe it was a voltage problem, a technical problem.”
Saikia said the ACA used generators to power the game and did not rely on power supply from the food service.
The media contingent also faced a similar problem before the game as there was no light until a few overs in the game as the officials took hours to discover the foul.
Earlier during India’s innings, it was a snake’s turn to stop play for around five minutes in a rare sight in an international game.
Snake also attended the India and South Africa cricket match at Guwahati Stadium.#Guwahati… https://t.co/OyVES0Qlub
— Prateek Pratap Singh (@PrateekPratap5) 1664720200000
The snake came out of nowhere from a small, unnoticed pit to scare Wayne Parnell into the extra cover area. He then slid into the square region.
The gardeners then came and captured him in a bucket.
It was during the last international game here, mismanagement of the venue hit the headlines when the first India-Sri Lanka T20I in January 2020 was abandoned after water seeped onto the pitch despite being covered three layers.
ACA had then made a sad figure by bringing a hair dryer, a steam iron, battery-powered fans among other tools to dry the ground but in vain.
