NEW DELHI: Sport has always been riddled with controversies and bizarre incidents. Rain stoppages, crowd trouble, injuries, stampedes, you name it and there have been incidents galore.
Cricket is no different. A look back in history show there have been many incidents of play being interrupted.
But what happened during the first ODI between India and New Zealand at McLean Park on January 23, 2019 completely bizarre.
Play was stopped because of sunlight. Strange? However, this is exactly transpired.
It is not unusual for rain-related interruptions in international cricket to be taken into account when applying the Duckworth-Lewis technique. Nevertheless, the sun's direct line of sight caused the batsmen to become uneasy, resulting in a brief pause in play during the match.
It was the sun that troubled the batsmen by coming right in the line of their view, forcing play to stop for about half an hour in the match.
The decision to halt proceedings was taken after the dinner break of the day-nighter, keeping the players' safety in mind.
Normally, the cricket pitches are positioned in the North-South direction to avoid this scenario, but at McLean Park, the pitch is East-West facing.
Stoppages due to sun had been witnessed in the past at the McLean Park during the domestic competitions, and reportedly, also at few English grounds, but none of them were international matches.
The then Indian captain Virat Kohli said he has never experienced a sun-induced stoppage in his life.
"Never in my life," he said when asked about the halt.
"It was funny. In 2014, I got out once with the sun in my eyes and this rule wasn't there then," Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Chasing 158, India were cruising at 44/1 in 10 overs when play was stopped. Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan were batting on 2 and 29 respectively.
