IndiGo flight cancellations throw domestic cricket travel into chaos

The IndiGo crisis has severely disrupted the travel plans of India’s domestic cricketers. The private airline has cancelled thousands of flights over the last couple of days due to a shortage of pilots after it failed to plan adequately for new rules limiting pilots’ work hours.

With the country’s air travel crippled, most teams featuring in the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy and U-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy found themselves stranded after their flights were cancelled, leaving players stuck at airports. With the tournaments set to begin on Monday across the country, some State units, including the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association and the Cricket Association of Bengal, were forced to send their teams to their respective destinations by road.

The Bengal U-19 team, scheduled to play Goa in Kalyani from Monday, had to board a bus from Bhilai in the early hours of Saturday. “We did not have a choice. Once the flights were cancelled, we decided to quickly arrange a bus from Bhilai and bring the team to Kalyani. There is hardly any time for the game, and this is perhaps the only solution we could think of,” Sanjay Das, the treasurer of CAB, told Sports stars.

The Bengal players and support staff left Bhilai, an industrial town in Chhattisgarh, around 1.30 am on Saturday and were travelling nearly 906 kilometres in a luxury bus via Raipur and Sambalpur. Sources indicated that the team management ensured adequate stops for breakfast and lunch.

“The boys have played back-to-back cricket and it has been a long journey for them, so they are obviously tired. We are still a long way from Kalyani, and the priority now is to reach, rest up and get ready for the game,” Bengal coach Sourasish Lahiri told Sports stars from Kharagpur at 11.30 pm on Saturday.

The Bengal team has been on the road for more than 11 hours and is still four hours away from its destination.

While the U-19 tournament begins on Monday, the U-16 tournament is scheduled to start on Sunday across several smaller centres. After getting stranded in New Delhi for nearly eight hours on Friday, the Jammu and Kashmir U-16 team left for Surat in a luxury bus. The U-23 team, which will take on Vidarbha in Nagpur from Monday, had to take a bus from Jammu after all flights were cancelled. The team was forced to undertake a 1,746-kilometre journey and was still a few hours away from Nagpur at the time of publishing.

With barely any turnaround time between arrival and matches, several State units approached BCCI officials for guidance. When contacted, BCCI president Mithun Manhas told Sports stars that, keeping the situation in mind, the Board has kept a provision to postpone matches by a day if teams arrive late. “It has been a difficult time in terms of logistics, but things are beyond anyone’s control. We are in constant touch with the State associations, and given the situation, if the teams reach late, we will start those matches a day later,” Manhas said.

“The health and the safety of the players and the support staff are of utmost importance to us, and keeping the gravity of the situation in mind, we have decided to keep a buffer for the teams. Once they reach their respective destinations, the match officials will talk to them and then decide on the future course of action,” the BCCI president said, adding: “Everyone must be so tired, so this break will help them to recover, regroup and start afresh…”

The disruption has taken a physical and mental toll on players and support staff, while also hitting State associations hard financially, as they have had to pay through their nose to make alternate arrangements.

Back in August, the Gujarat Cricket Association had booked flights from Ahmedabad to Shivamogga for its U-16 team, and the airfare was around Rs. 4,500 per person. But with flights cancelled, the association had to shell out Rs. 22,000 to Rs. 27,000 per person for alternate tickets. In addition, there were local transport costs from Bengaluru to Shivamogga, where the U-16 team will be playing.

“Over the last couple of days, we had to make fresh bookings for the team, and since there was a huge rush, it wasn’t possible to get tickets on the same flight, so some went on Air India, some were accommodated by Akasa Air, and a few by IndiGo,” said Anil Patel, the secretary of the GCA.

En route to Puducherry, the U-19 team was also stuck in Mumbai for a couple of days before the association could arrange flight tickets to Chennai. “They are now scheduled to reach Chennai around 12 am on Sunday and then take a bus to Puducherry. If there’s no further delay, the team is expected to reach Puducherry around 4 am on Sunday,” Patel said.

While the association was initially thinking of requesting the BCCI to reschedule the game, the players insisted they would be ready for the match on Monday. However, with the BCCI deciding to give a ‘buffer’, it would be a huge boost for all the teams.

The disruption has not been limited to age-group cricket. India international and Gujarat bowler Harshal Patel also missed a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy game against Baroda last Thursday as his flight to Hyderabad was cancelled. Harshal had come to Ahmedabad to attend to his ailing father and was supposed to head back to Hyderabad on Thursday, but the disruption meant he could not reach on time. However, he featured in an SMAT game against Himachal Pradesh on Saturday.