Odisha govt fumes, demands clarification over embarrassing floodlight failure in India vs England 2nd ODI

The second ODI between India and England at Cuttack was successfully organized with the home team emerging victorious in the end. However, the floodlight failure at the Barabati Stadium turned out to be a major drawback in the game.

The failure of one of the eight floodlights prompted the match to be delayed by around 30 minutes which led to the players and the fans getting frustrated. However, the match resumed later with no further delays.

Despite the match continuing successfully after the unfortunate delay, the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) was left embarrassed. Odisha's sports minister Suryabanshi Suraj even claimed that the government will ask the OCA for an explanation of this matter.

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Odisha government to demand clarification from OCA

Suryabanshi Suraj was present in the stadium to watch the match along with Odisha's Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and some other senior ministers of his cabinet. As a result, the floodlight failure happened right in front of the state's ministers leaving the OCA officials embarrassed.

"An explanation will be sought from the OCA over the floodlight glitch. It happened despite taking all precautions and making elaborate prior arrangements by the OCA," Suraj was quoted as saying by TOI.

The OCA later defended the incident claiming that they had made arrangements by having two generators for each floodlight but it needed some time to move the generator due to the players' vehicle being parked in that area.

"When one generator malfunctioned, we put the second one in service. But it required some time to move the generator as the players' vehicle was parked in between the tower and the second generator," OCA secretary Sanjay Behera told the reporters.

The MLA from the Barbati area in Cuttack, Sofia Firdous, was also present at the stadium and called the incident unfortunate. She also called for a separate investigation on this matter.

"What happened at the Barabati stadium today is very unfortunate. An impartial investigation should be conducted," said Firdous.

What was the incident at Barabati Stadium?

The incident happened when India were batting in the second innings of the match. After 6.1 overs, the match was interrupted when one of the eight floodlights went off at around 6.15 pm. The floodlight was turned back on at 6:21 pm and it seemed like the match would get started soon.

However, as the bowler Saqib Mahmood was about to bowl the next delivery, the lights went off again. After some time, the players and the umpires went back to the pavilion. Rohit Sharma seemed keen to carry on as he was looking in great touch. India were 48-0 at that time.

The spectators, who had gathered in thousands of numbers patiently waited for the match to get underway again. The DJ on the ground tried his best to entertain the crowd by turning out the music loudly.

Rohit Sharma takes India to victory

Despite stoppages in play, India were able to dominate the game and won the match by 4 wickets in the end. The Men in Blue made a mockery of a stiff target of 304 runs and chased it down with more than 5 overs to spare.

Rohit Sharma was the star for India as he played a captain's knock. Rohit smashed a blistering 119 off just 90 balls, which included 12 fours and 7 sixes. It was his 32nd ODI century and a very important one for him.