Water bottles thrown by spectators lie on the ground as the second Twenty20 cricket match between India and South Africa is disrupted in Cuttack, India, Monday, Oct. 5, 2015
Clearly all of you might be fuming with anger right now. Seeing your country get defeated repeatedly, that too in cricket, is just not easy. With an esteemed list of players chosen selectively for the match between India and South Africa at the Barabati Stadium, Cuttack, failing seemed a far-fetched plausibility. Still, the undesirable happened and with that came the very irksome reaction from the crowd, which is going to be remembered over the years.
Crowd Trouble
A bottle-throwing incident was witnessed at the only international cricket stadium of Odisha, with the first coming between the innings, the second came after 11 overs of the chase. While the first interruption did not cost anything to the team, the second delay resulted in a 27-minute held up. A third wave of bottle-throwing came again after two overs, causing a delay of another 24 minutes. In the two installments, the play was help up for a total of 51 minutes. A reminiscent of the 90s, the scene of bottle-throwing urged the players to take refuge near the middle of the field before police took control of the section of the crowd that was responsible for the panic.
Clearly, they didn’t see what they came expecting. The Cuttack stadium barely gets a chance to host any international match. Hence, for the denizens of the state, it is like a craving that wasn’t attended for a long time. That kind of wait builds a huge appetite and when people still don’t find it filling enough, they throw the plate. They crowd patiently sat through India’s batting collapse, but couldn’t bear South Africa canter to a win.
The reaction was cricitized on social media with players like VVS Laxman and Yuvraj Singh sharing their respective opinions. Take a look:
What They Said About- Crowd trouble in Cuttack – Cricket
A Not-So-Cool DJ Vs Captain Cool
Ahead of the encounter, a situation caused skipper MS Dhoni to cut short his practice session on Sunday. The story goes like this: The DJ who was supposed to play the upbeat tracks during the match was readying his music. This coincided with the practice session of Dhoni. When he entered the stadium to hit the nets, the DJ raised the volume of the music. This didn’t leave the skipper amused and he sent a message to turn it off. To an utterly shocking response, the DJ showed a deaf ear to Dhoni’s request and continued with the same volume. As a result, Dhoni was forced to walk away from the nets.
The Pitch that wasn’t
It was not just the crowd, even the Cuttack pitch played a role or two in giving the Indian team a hard time today. The pitch was carved with cracks, crevices, and there was dew as well.
South Africa were excellent whatsoever. They have clinched the T20 series with one match still to go, which is in Kolkata on Thursday.
In any case, a state and its people are going to be remembered more than the cricket.