How it felt as a player when a man drove his car onto the pitch: UP's Mohammad Saif talks to Sportskeeda about the incident
In what was just another day of play in the Ranji Trophy Group A encounter between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh at the Palam 'A' ground in New Delhi on Friday, things took a rather outrageous turn when a man decided to drive his car onto the field. The driver, who identified himself as Girish Sharma, later said that he had lost his way and didn't drive on to the field intentionally.
Subsequently, and rightly so, questions were raised on the DDCA and the authorities in charge of the Airforce Complex Ground ground. There were quite a few international stars (Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma and Rishabh Pant), along with several domestic players who were a part of the contest when the security breach took place.
Naturally, they wouldn't have been happy about the incident and the security measures taken as these tweets from Suresh Raina and Ishant Sharma clearly reflect.
In the follow-up, post the completion of the match, Sportskeeda managed to catch up with UP's Mohammad Saif, who played a knock of 83 and picked a couple wickets in the match. The 21-year-old described the incident and how the players felt in the aftermath of it.
"I'm not too sure about the security arrangements but, the game was stopped because of drinks I suppose. Suddenly, someone drove a car, took two rounds of the wicket and then went off.
"We talked about it later. All this happened in an Air Force area, the security arrangements should've been tight. There are so many international players on both the sides, aise to terrorist attack bhi ho sakta hai (even a terrorist attack is possible). It is not acceptable at all that such instances are taking place in the army/airforce area, let alone the normal facilities.
"The only positive thing that came out of it was that none of the players were harmed."
The incident might soon be forgotten as 'none of the players and officials were harmed'. However, it should first serve as an example for the authorities, not only in Delhi but all over the nation, that the security arrangements in and around the ground, especially during a domestic match, cannot be taken lightly.