Ind SL ODI 5: Stopped Amidst Pitch Flare Drama

A series that was won by India in the fourth ODI itself faced humiliation when it came to the fifth ODI in New Delhi as the pitch at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium forced the visitors to take a tough stance.

dilshan injured indians walk

Twenty-three overs were bowled. Sri Lanka were struggling to forge together a partnership of note since Tillkeratne Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya, both of whom sustained injuries when facing the rising ball, this after Zaheer Khan gave India the early breakthroughs. Sudeep Tyagi was getting prodigious bounce even as the pitch played truant, mixing high rises with low ones.

Sri Lanka were struggling at eighty-three for five before the Sri Lankan captain, Kumar Sangakkara, raised his hands to call his batsmen back to the pavilion. No, he was not flying the white flag of surrender; he simply had too much of the pitch.

With injuries growing and the pitch continuing to misbehave, the Sri Lankan captain found himself with no option but to fprve the umpires into rethinking moving on with the game. With the Sri Lankans refusing to bat and Sangakkara joining the umpires in the middle, the ICC match referee, Alan Hurst, was forced to abandon his perch and get to the reality at the ground level.

But it appeared imminent that while Mahendra Singh Dhoni may not voiced strongly against the match, it was quite obvious that Sangakkara was having none of the possibility of continuing this play or the tour.

Hurst had long discussions in the middle, with Chetan Chauhan in an animated discussion. The group moved on to the pitch area, inspecting the possibility of another pitch but by then, it had become quite obvious that the desperate measure to hodl the match would yield little.

Closed door drama ensued as the crowd grew restless, and after what seemed like an interminable wait, the writing was on the wall. The final match was abandoned due to poor pitch conditions and it meant that India had won the series 3-1, but the ending was far from a fairy tale.

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