New Delhi, Dec 25: The Delhi-Andhra Ranji Trophy Elite Group A tie scheduled to begin on Thursday in Vizag has been postponed by a day after Delhi squad failed to reach the venue in good time. It was expected to be in the steel city by Wednesday evening but a cancelled flight ensured that it’s not yet sure how, when and in what shape it will arrive for its final four-day match of the season. The team was booked in Wednesday morning’s Indian Airlines flight which meant that the players wouldn’t have got a feel of the ground even if they had reached as planned. Harried DDCA officials desperately tried to haul the team down to Vizag but could eventually only manage to persuade the Andhra Cricket Association to join them in appealing to the Board for a day’s postponement. Thankfully, Board secretary S.K. Nair, exercising his powers as per the Board constitution, acquiesced. ‘‘I’ve postponed this game by a day owing to emergent circumstances,’’ Nair told reporters from Trivandrum. He added that other Elite and Plate group Ranji matches, scheduled to begin on Thursday, will start as per the roster. Coming back to Delhi, 12 members of the 18-strong squad, including senior players and coach Madan Lal, managed to take a flight to Bhubaneswar from where they were planning to reach Vizag by road. Manager D.S. Bawa and 4-5 junior players, however, had to wait for several hours before they could take an evening flight to Hyderabad. While the postponement has come handy for DDCA, the plan to send the team only a day before the tie was always fraught with danger due to the foggy weather in North India during December and January.
Bureau Report