Many hurdles in India vs South Africa match

Guwahati. Mismanagement is often seen in international matches hosted by the Assam Cricket Association and the same situation prevailed in the India vs South Africa T20 International at the Barsapara Stadium here on Sunday. During the Indian innings in the match, a snake came out on the field, while during South Africa’s innings, the match had to be stopped for the second time due to a fault in the flood light in the stadium.

After Deepak Chahar’s first ball in the third over of the innings, when South Africa were struggling after scoring five for two, one of the four floodlight towers went off and play was halted for 18 minutes. All these players went back to the dressing room and it took about six minutes for all the lights to light up one by one before the game started again.

Terming it a ‘technical glitch’, Assam Cricket Association secretary Devjit Saikia said, “We have three parties handling the power aspect – our own 25-member team, the state electricity department and a third (outsourced) group. This incident probably happened due to voltage problem, due to some technical fault.

Saikia said that the ACA has used generator sets to power the match and they are not dependent on its supply from the electricity department. The media team also faced a similar problem before the match as there was no light for a few overs in the match. It took the officials hours to spot the mistake.

During the Indian innings, the game had to be stopped for five minutes due to a snake coming out of the extra cover area in the field. The field worker took the snake out of the field with the help of a bucket. The mismanagement also made headlines during the last international match at this venue. During the opening T20 International between India and Sri Lanka in January 2020, the pitch was water-wetted after three levels of cover.

The ACA then used hair dryers, steam irons, battery-operated fans and other equipment to dry the pitch but this did not prove to be enough.