10 Most talked about moments of Indian cricket in 2015

6. The bottle throwing incident at Cuttack:

Crowd trouble forced two interruptions in play during the second T20I at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on 5th October as India suffered a six-wicket defeat against the South Africa. Play was held up for more than 50 minutes during the visitors’ run chase after spectators, largely from one section of the stadium, began throwing plastic bottles onto the field. Though the incident was downplayed by Indian skipper MS Dhoni, it raised serious questions about the safety precautions at grounds in India, especially for a high-profile match like this.

The standard procedure is for spectators who buy drinks at the ground to be given their liquid refreshments in plastic cups, whether water or soft drinks, which cannot be used as missiles. How the spectators could carry bottles to their seats in this game became a matter for investigation. Also apparent was the relaxed security; when the match resumed after the break most of the policemen on the boundary could be seen watching the match rather than facing the crowd as per the procedure. There were calls from all quarters for a ban on the venue, especially from former great Sunil Gavaskar who was utterly disgusted with the incident. Odisha Home Secretary, Asit Kumar Tripathy in November stated that he had submitted the report on this incident to the government however it hasn’t been made public till date.