The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has shifted the knockout stage of its annual men’s Under-23 one-day tournament from Delhi to Mumbai, due to the high level of air pollution in the capital. The BCCI has orally asked the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) to prepare to host the games from November 25 to December 1.
“We got a call from the BCCI today, informing us that the MCA has been allotted the under-23 one-day knockouts due to high air pollution in the capital. Cricket can’t be played in those conditions,” a source in the MCA told The Indian Express.
The air quality in Delhi has reached hazardous levels, as it often does at this time of the year. On Thursday, air quality touched the ‘severe’ category, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) reaching 400, data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showed.
According to the forecast, Delhi’s air quality is likely to deteriorate further, remaining in the ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ range for the next six days, according to the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ Air Quality Early Warning System.
The last league game of the under-23 tournament will be played in Vadodara on Friday. Eight teams will take part in the knockout phase, the schedule for which will be out in the coming days.
Earlier, the BCCI had moved the first Test against South Africa starting November 14, initially scheduled in Delhi, to Kolkata after criticism for staging a game in the capital during peak pollution season. Instead, Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium was allotted the second Test against the West Indies from October 10.
During the 2017 Delhi Test against Sri Lanka in the first week of December, the average AQI was 316, which falls in the ‘very poor’ category. It went up to 390 on Day 3 of the game, forcing some of the players to take the field in masks. On Day 2, Lankan pacer Lahiru Gamage, in the middle of an over, struggled to continue due to respiratory problems, resulting in a 17-minute stoppage. Teammate Suranga Lakmal rushed indoors complaining of nausea and threw up. At one point in the Test, Sri Lanka had just 10 fit players on the field and oxygen cylinders were rushed to their dressing room.
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The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), the air pollution watchdog for Delhi-NCR, has proposed a major rejig of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), moving up several measures to earlier stages. This essentially means that a range of actions – relating, for example, to how people travel or work – will kick in at lower levels of air pollution than is the current norm.
