After Bangladesh, Sri Lanka Cancel Training At Arun Jaitley Stadium Due To Delhi’s Air Pollution

New Delhi: After Bangladesh, the Sri Lankan cricketers have reportedly cancelled their practice session at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday in the Capital due to the increasing air pollution and AQI (Air Quality Index). Delhi is one of the two Indian cities which is experiencing higher AQI. Such has been the condition in Delhi that all government and primary schools were shut for two days. Already out of semifinal race, Bangladesh will take on Sri Lanka on Monday.

Based on a CricketNext report, Sri Lanka were scheduled to train at 2 PM IST on Saturday but was called off. However, there has been no official confirmation from SLC. Bangladesh are scheduled to train from 6 PM. Outside the stadium, the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) has put truck-mounted water sprinklers to work to control the pollution.

The air quality level at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium is currently hazardous.

PM2.5 concentration in Delhi is presently 97.1 times the WHO annual air quality guideline value.

A slight improvement in air quality is predicted over the next two days. However, there’s a… pic.twitter.com/NAjd9mgqrV

— Numbers.lk (@numberslka) November 4, 2023

A day earlier, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) had objected to playing the conditions while Bangladesh didn’t come out. An AQI between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51 and 100 “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 “moderate”, 201 and 300 “poor”, 301 and 400 “very poor”, and 401 and 500 “severe”.

It is unlikely that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will shift the game out of Delhi but the call on whether the match will go ahead will only be taken on that day. “We are currently assessing the situation. The ICC and our hosts the BCCI take the well-being of all participants seriously and are monitoring the air quality in Delhi. We are taking expert advice to assess the situation,” an ICC spokesperson told PTI.

The air quality is usually assessed by match officials on the day of a game. It is not the first time that Sri Lanka are having to deal with Delhi’s notorious air pollution. The players had to wear masks during the Test series back in 2017.

On Friday, Bangladesh team director Khaled Mahmud said the players developed cough after going out in the city and therefore the management decided to cancel the first training session.
On Friday, the air quality plummeted to the “severe plus” category.

“Many( cricketers) went out yesterday (Thursday) and now they are having some kind of coughing so there is a risk factor involved and so we cancelled the training so that they don’t get unwell,” said Mahmud at the team hotel.