New Delhi: With day one of the Ranji Trophy match between Delhi and Railways attracting a mind-boggling crowd of 15,000 plus people at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, a senior official in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) said to IANS that more security personnel have been deployed for day two’s play Friday.
For day two’s play, security personnel outside the venue told IANS that all gates had been thrown open from 8 am, with an anticipation that more people would come with an eye to see the talismanic Virat Kohli bat. It meant that fans who lined up outside the stadium from 6 am were given an early entry into the stands.
“The Delhi Police had a meeting with the DDCA people yesterday evening on security measures around the stadium and decided to add more security personnel for day two’s play, especially with likelihood of Virat Kohli batting for Delhi. More security personnel have also been stationed near the boundary ropes to ensure no intruder runs on the field during the play,” further said the senior DDCA official to IANS.
The development to add more security people around the boundary ropes is significant, considering that on day one, an eager fan ran in from the Gautam Gambhir Stand to touch Kohli’s feet and was taken away by the security people in the 12th over. Kohli, standing at the second slip, gestured to the security people to not hit the fan.
Coming to the match, Delhi will resume day two’s play from 41/1 in 10 overs and trail Railways by 200 runs. Yash Dhull, India’s 2022 U19 World Cup winning captain, and Sanat Sangwan will resume their innings from 17 and nine respectively.
On day one, wicketkeeper-batter Upendra Yadav made a superb 95 off 177 balls as Railways made 241 in 67.4 overs. He stitched partnerships of 104 with Karn Sharma, who made a 106-ball fifty and 59 with Himanshu Sangwan, who made a handy 29 to help Railways get a respectable total.
For Delhi, pacer Navdeep Saini and spinner Sumit Mathur took three scalps each, while fast bowlers Siddhant Sharma and Money Grewal picked two wickets.
