Describing the match stoppage that took place during the second day's play as abnormal, Nick Pothas, interim coach of Sri Lanka, denied that his team at any point wanted play to be stopped. Highlighting the national capital's reputation of a badly polluted city, he gave details of a dressing room afflicted by pollution related breathing difficulties and vomiting.
“It is well documented that Delhi has high level of pollution. They had got extremely high at one point; we had players coming in at one point and vomiting. There were oxygen cylinders in the dressing room. It is not normal for players to suffer in that way while playing the game. From our point of view, it has to be stated that it is a very very unique case. I thought all the officials, the match referee and others handled the situation very well. When it is a new situation for everybody, it is not easy to make decisions. I feel for the umpires and I feel for the match referee. But the job of myself and the manager is to make sure that the players are safe. That’s all what we do.”
Pothas said the bowlers, especially the pacers, were struggling in the middle. “Suranga and Lahiru. The match referee was in our change room when Suranga was vomiting. Doctors were there as well. Dhananjaya de Silva was vomiting. It was tough.”
Play was interrupted thrice during the second session of the game. A total of 22 were lost. In what were unprecedented developments, during the second and third interruptions, Lanka manager Asanka Gurusinha and Pothas were seen coming onto the field to speak with on field umpires. Lankan players worse masks, two of them went off the field.
Asked what he said to the umpires, Pothas said, “The captain wanted to speak to me about; we had only ten people at one stage as there were not enough people to get on the field. The umpires were very clear where they were coming from. I don’t envy them. Their position was tough as well. There aren’t too many rules written on pollution.”
Asserting that his players' complaints were genuine, he denied that these were delaying tactics on his teams part. The Lankans at no point wanted the officials to call off play. We had to play cricket. Under most circumstances we wanted to play cricket. We just wanted to have some clarity on the safety of players. You could see the two fast bowlers; fast bowling is an intense job. The two guys were struggling. When it becomes unsafe—that is when the conversation started. The safety of the players is of paramount importance.”
