Melbourne, May 14: Australia women’s team captain Alyssa Healy has shared a gripping account of the night of “complete madness” when the IPL match between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals was called off midway in Dharamsala due to air raid sirens in neighbouring cities.
The match was halted when Punjab were cruising at 122 for 1 in 10.1 overs with floodlight failure cited as the initial reason. Healy, who is married to Australia and Delhi Capitals pacer Mitchell Starc, was in the stands along with family members of other players.
Assuming it was a minor issue, Healy and the others with her stayed calm at first before things went out of hand.
“Couple of the light towers went out and we were just there waiting. I heard a rumour a couple of seats down that we might have to evacuate the stadium cause the lights gone down,” Healy said on the WillowTalk podcast.
“And we are large group of family and extra support staff. And next minute the guy that kind of wrangles the group of us and gets us on the bus comes up and his face was white.
“And he was like, we need to go right now. And we were saying, ‘oh, it’s okay’. Like we’re probably best off letting everyone else get out of the stadium and like stay here. We’re probably safer at the moment. Cause there’ll be people going down the stairs everywhere,” she added.
Things escalated quickly and they were shuffled into what Healy described as “a holding pen,” where the PBKS and DC players were already present.
“Then the next guy came out, his face was white, grabbed one of the children and said ‘we need to leave right now’,” the wicketkeeper batter said.
Such was the urgency that Healy recalled Faf du Plessis being in the room without his shoes.
“The boys (players) are there. Faf didn’t even have shoes on. They’re all just waiting there looking stressed. I asked to Mitch, ‘what’s going on?’ And he said, ‘the town 60 kilometres away had just been smacked by some of the missiles’.”
“And so there was a complete blackout in the area, which meant that’s why the lights were off because the Dharmasala stadium was like a beacon at that point in time.”
It was then that the gravity of the situation dawned.
On the day of the match, a blackout was enforced in several districts including Pathankot, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Mohali in Punjab and Union Territory Chandigarh amid air raid alarms and reports of explosion-like sounds in Jammu.
“So all of a sudden we’re crammed into vans and off we go back to the hotel. There was madness. We’re sitting on the bus with some of the Punjab players. I think Shreyas was on my bus. It was just like get in a van as soon as you can get out of there,” Healy added.
The teams were brought to Delhi through a lengthy road and train journey which involved traversing Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar. (PTI)
