Jharkhand’s Ishank Jaggi recounts the horror of the fire in his blog

Former Indian cricket team captain MS Dhoni, along with his Jharkhand teammates, survived a fire scare on Friday (March 17) morning after a fire broke out in Dwarka’s Welcome Hotel where the team was put up. All players and support staff were evacuated in time and are safe.

Dhoni led Jharkhand is currently in the capital for the Vijay Hazare Trophy semi-finals. They were supposed to face Bengal on Friday, but the match has been postponed to Saturday (March 18). The fire broke out at around 6 am in the morning some time before the team was scheduled to leave for the stadium. Though the players were evacuated their kits and equipment were still in the hotel.

Ishank Jaggi recounted the horror of the fire on his blog for xtratime.in: “March 17 will always remain as a horrifying day for me. As I am writing this column, I could still sense the scaring moment I faced a few hours back. One of our openers Pratyush Singh posted the news in the team’s whatsapp group around 6:45am. He wrote that there is a fire which broke out downstairs, and alerted the teammates not to come down.”

He further recounted how the hotel rooms were engulfed in smoke and that the cricketers could see nothing at all. “Around 7 am we tried to come out of our room but were frightened to see smoke all-around the place. We hardly could see each other and it was very suffocating. Luckily we found that the lift was working that goes down to the lobby.”

Dhoni likes he does on the field led his team in this adversity as well and all the players somehow managed to get to the elevators which were luckily working and they were able to escape unhurt. “Meanwhile, Mahi bhai also joined us in front of the lift. Once we came down the lift to the lobby, we discovered that the fire did not catch in the hotel but in the shopping mall adjacent to it.”

Jaggi in his blog further revealed that Dhoni was very calm during the situation like he is on the field during the most stressful of situations. “I was amazed to see the calmness on the face of Mahi bhai. He was so relaxed with the situation. He kept on assuring us not to get panicked and that everything will be under control.”