Cricket has witnessed several absurd reasons for getting delayed. Match 22 of IPL 2021 between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad witnessed one such rare occasion.
Delhi Capitals started well with their pacers accounting for the RCB openers and reduced them to 36/2. Just when Glenn Maxwell started to look dangerous, he perished against nemesis Amit Mishra. The veteran leggie removed the Aussie all-rounder for the fifth time in IPL. Post that, Rajat Patidar and AB de Villiers steadied the ship with a brisk half-century.
Avesh Khan was brilliant with his yorkers in the death overs and when it looked like RCB would end with a par score, the 20th over has probably ensured an above-par. However, Stoinis ended up conceding 23 runs off it as AB de Villiers powered Royal Challengers Bangalore to 171 runs.
Sandstorm delays Delhi Capitals run chase
While Delhi Capitals openers – Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan were up and about to come out for the run chase, a sandstorm appeared from nowhere. Meanwhile, it looked like it’s quite a bad sandstorm – very windy, very noisy, and it has blown away the stand covers. The players are sitting around by the boundary, so apparently, it isn’t bad enough for them to worry about getting this dust in their eyes.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time when a cricket match was stopped due to a sandstorm. The historic game at the Sharjah in 1998 between India and Australia was also affected by a sudden sandstorm.
The game finally resumed after a couple of minutes of delay and Delhi Capitals have already set the record straight. Prithvi Shaw played a couple of breathtaking shots to start the run chase on a roll before Royal Challengers Bangalore bounced back with two quick wickets to have the opposition at 28 for two. Delhi skipper Rishabh Pant will once again have to play a big knock to chase the total down.
