Sri Lanka cricket puts national cricketers in harm’s way for the second time
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It was very disturbing to watch the national cricketers suffering from respiratory problems during the 3rd Test match played with India at New Delhi. On 8th November, India’s capital became the most polluted city on earth.
Apparently, visibility was so bad that vehicles crashed on highways and some international flights were cancelled. So the million dollar question is whether our cricket authorities were so ignorant of the ground situation in Delhi, or they simply did not have the backbone to tell India that conditions in Delhi are no way conducive for outdoor activity for a duration of 5 days? I shudder to think it’s the latter than the former. This is not the first time our national cricketer’s lives have been in danger due to the careless attitude of our cricket authorities. Who can forget the horrible Lahore attack? Please, don’t put our cricketers’ lives in danger.
It was also disgusting to hear the cricket commentary of partisan Indian commentators. One of them, Harsha Bhogle at one point was saying something to the effect that if both umpires, one from England and the other from the West Indies, didn’t have any concerns about air quality, why are the Sri Lankans making such a fuss. When Chandimal scored a brilliant century, first thing Sunjey Manjrekar said was that Chadimal doesn’t seem to show respiratory problems he suffered when he was fielding on his way to the three figure mark. Regardless of such below the belt commentary, the Sri Lankans may have done a favor to India! Wearing those face masks surely got the attention of the world media. Hopefully, the authorities in that city would take some concrete measures to solve the deadly air pollution.
Concerned Lankan citizen