India vs Bangladesh: DDCA uses water tankers to settle dust ahead of 1st T20I

The Delhi
and District Association decided to ‘water out’ the smog surrounding the Arun
Jaitley Stadium ahead of the first India-Bangladesh T20I on Sunday.

A day before
the series opening T20I, the DDCA arranged a tanker to splash water all around
the stadium in order to settle the dust that has been adding to the decreasing air
quality in the surroundings.

A big hose
pipe was used to wash the road leading to the gate no. 1,2,3 and 6 of the Arun
Jaitley Stadium. Water was splashed on the trees, the stadium walls, the
adjacent park and also the Virender Sehwag gate and Anjum Chopra gate.

There has
been growing concerns over the first T20I after the Air Quality Index breached ‘severe’
and ‘severe plus’ category many times in the last few days. The conditions are
such that the Delhi government was forced to shut down schools till November 5.

BCCI,
however, decided to give a green signal to match as newly elected BCCI
president Sourav Ganguly said last minute changes were not possible.

“We have
spoken to Delhi authorities in the last two days. They are expecting the match
to go through. It could not be cancelled in the last minute,” Ganguly said.

“We came in
on the October 28 and it was too late to do anything, Lot of preparation go in
matches. I hope it goes through. Post Diwali is a difficult time in the North.
There is smoke and dust and everything, in future when we schedule matches in
North at this time of the year, we have to be a bit more practical,” the BCCI
chief added.

The players
have just got on with the game and haven’t complained too much about it,”
Domingo told sources, “It’s only three hours so it’s going to be easy. There
maybe scratchy eyes, sore throat but that’s ok. No one is dying.”

India
stand-in captain Rohit Sharma, said there shouldn’t be any problems on Sunday.

“We didn’t
have any problem when we played the Test match here (against Sri Lanka). We are
not aware of the exact discussion and I haven’t had any problem,” he added.