India, England forced to stay in Pune as OCA bungles

The Orissa Cricket Association (OCA) was left red faced when crowd trouble had marred a T20I match between India and South Africa in the year 2015, and the association is now faced with a fresh issue that has stopped both Indian and English cricket teams from travelling to Cuttack for the second ODI of the three-match series scheduled for Thursday.

Due to lack of hotel rooms, which have been pre-booked for the purpose of a marriage, India and England will stay in Pune till Wednesday morning and then travel to Cuttack in the afternoon.

“The team will be coming to Cuttack on Wednesday morning at 11:30 am and train around 4 pm in the afternoon. Actually, the hotel is overbooked till Tuesday and there are no rooms available for the teams. But rooms are available from Wednesday and hence the delay in travel plans,” OCA secretary Ashirbad Behera was quoted as saying.

He added: “Everything is in order and we are hoping that the match will be a great success just like the first ODI in Pune. As for the hotels, we can’t really help when it comes to these things. We can only book rooms when we have it available."

In the T20I game between India and South Africa, a match in which the home side were bowled out for 92, there were three incidents where the crowd began to throw bottles on the pitch, forcing a delay in proceedings.