New Delhi: The constant billowing smog in New Delhi caused the cancellation of the first day’s schedule in the Ranji Trophy games on Saturday.
Keeping the health of the players at first priority basis, officials took the decision to call off the events lined up after multiple inspections of players complaining about eye irritations and diffculties in breathing freely.
While at Kotla, players Manoj Tiwary and Parthiv Patel went out for the toss but match referee P Ranganathan along with umpires Virender Sharma and Krishnamachari Bharathan took the final call, against it, at 4pm.
A rarity to see players from both ends, complain of burning eyes and breathing problems.
Bengal coach Sairaj Bahutule said: “The players were complaining that they were having burning sensation in their eyes. It’s bad out there.”
“The players also complained of breathing problems. If you stay out there for an hour, the air that you inhale will cause irreparable damage to the lungs.” one of the DDCA officials said.
Bengal captain Manoj Tiwary mentioned that players felt they could not play in such a harsh enviroment much before the start of the game.
“This is the first time something like this happened in my career. You can’t blame anyone. There is so much burning sensation in the eyes. After toss, umpires asked both me and Parthiv and we both decided that we can’t play.
“During warm up we felt that it’s not happening. We have to take care of our health also. This is something unheard of. But we are all responsible because when we burst crackers we really think about environmental pollution,” said Tiwary.
Match Referee P Ranganathan added: “This is something no one can do anything about. We have informed BCCI about situation. It’s difficult to shift matches.”
The cancelled matches previously lined up were between Bengal and Gujarat in group A at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium and a group C match between Tripura and Hyderabad at Karnail Singh Stadium.
Ever since the state of the air in Delhi has worsened with predictions of smog continuing there are worries of little cricket seen played.