The Barabati Stadium in Cuttack, which hosted the second T20 match between India and South Africa witnessed yet another embarrassing spectacle of spectator violence. During the South African batting, the match had to be temporarily called off twice, as the hostile audience in the stadium started throwing bottles aiming the cricket field. The basic cause of their annoyance was the heartbreaking performance of the Indian batting as the hosts were bundled out for 92 by the Proteas and defeat seemed imminent.
As we all know that fans in India are always extremely passionate about the game and a loss is a strict no-no for them. The fact holds true for fans all over the cricketing world and there have been a quite a few instances where cricket matches have witnessed audience vandalism.
Let's take a look at five such prominent examples of spectator violence in cricket:
1) 1996 World Cup Semi-finals, Eden Gardens
Perhaps the most acknowledged example of spectator violence in the history of cricket, the condemned incident took place when India and Sri Lanka locked horns for a place in the finals of the World Cup. The home team chasing a total of 252 set by the visitors, faltered to 120-8 from a healthy score of 98-2. At the fall of the eight Indian wicket, the crowd started venting their disgust by setting fires to certain stands in the stadium and throwing fruits and water bottles onto the field. As play resumed, the irked fans again started to throw bottles targeting the deep fielders and match referee R Mahanama had to award the game in Sri Lanka's favour by default.
2) 1999 Asian Test Championship, Eden Gardens
After 3 years, at the same venue, a similar crowd trouble was experienced during the first match of the Asian Test Championship between India and Pakistan. During the fourth day's play, Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar was involved in a controversial run out of Indian maestro Sachin Tendulkar. This particular incident triggered enough anger amongst the spectators, which was soon followed by a riot. Sensing a bigger fiasco, immediately the strong 1,00,000 crowd was evicted from the stadium and the rest of the match, which eventually Pakistan won, was witnessed by a few police officers, officials and journalists.
3) 1975 Ashes, Leeds
England was at the brink of a loss, on the final day of the fourth and final Test match of the Ashes. The Aussies needed 225 to win with seven wickets remaining and some English patriots decided to step up to the cause. Their brilliant plan included sabotaging the pitch by digging holes with knives and pouring a gallon of oil near the good length areas. The perpetrators hid themselves under the cover of the crowd. As a result, the match was forcefully abandoned and Australia won the Ashes 1-0.
4) 1989 India vs Pakistan, Karachi
It was the 3rd ODI of the series and only 14.3 overs have been bowled, when suddenly the fans in the National Stadium erupted violently and disrupted the match. When the crowd condition went out of control, the match had to be abandoned.
5) 2015, Sri Lanka vs Pakistan
Rioting spectators started throwing stones during the 3rd ODI of the series between Sri Lanka and Pakistan and forced the umpires to call off play for around 20 minutes as the police deployed anti-riot squads to two blocks of stands near the scoreboard as rival groups of spectators clashed, pelting stones into the grounds from outside the stadium after they were forced out during Sri Lanka's unsuccessful run chase in the day-night match.
By Dipayan Saha
