Srinagar: Amid the ongoing escalating India-Pakistan tensions, the Thursday evening’s IPL match in Dharamsala between Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Delhi Capitals (DC) has been called off midway “due to a significant technical failure” at the stadium.
“Due to a power outage in the area, one of the light towers at the HPCA stadium malfunctioned. BCCI regrets the inconvenience caused to the in-stadium attendees,” an official statement said.
Only 10.1 overs of the first innings had taken place in the game, after PBKS had opted to bat first. Openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh had put on a century opening stand in that time, and Arya had just been dismissed for 70 off 34 by T Natarajan before the match had been halted as three floodlight towers went off around 9.29pm IST. Around 11 minutes later, it was learnt that the match had been called off.
Meanwhile Criccbuzz.com report quoting sources said that there was no announcement over the PA system but the local police and the venue operations team requested for a slow evacuation of the stadium. The development followed news reports of military escalation in Jammu, about 200 kilometres away from Dharamsala.
“There is no rush or panic… the cops came and asked everyone to move slowly towards the exits,” a team source at the venue told Cricbuzz. There has been no blackout in the hill town of Dharamsala at the time of writing.
More to follow