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How The 'Floodlight Failure' Tactics Helped In Smooth Evacuation During PBKS Vs DC Match

Anurag Dasgupta

How fans were evacuated [Source: AP Photo] How fans were evacuated [Source: AP Photo]

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, on Friday morning was suspended due to the ongoing conflict and tensions between India and Pakistan. The situation escalated when the match between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals on Thursday was abandoned at the Dharamsala Stadium.

Initially the match was suspended due to floodlight failure at the Stadium. However, IPL Chairman, Arun Dhumal revealed that mentioning floodlight failure was a tactics to evacuate the fans smoothly from the Stadium as tension got high between India and Pakistan.

How Arun Dhumal smartly evacuated the fans from Dharamsala Stadium

"Preparations were in full swing, but as you know, yesterday, the situation escalated by some margin. There was news of activities near Pathankot and Jammu, so we thought that the crowd should not panic. And that's why keeping the public safety in mind, this step (of announcing a floodlights' failure) was taken, and the crowd was evacuated safely. We did not want to create a situation that would cause panic, so we arrived at this situation."

The match between PBKS and DC only went for 10.1 overs as Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh took the DC bowlers to the cleaners. However, as captain Shreyas Iyer was set to walk out to bat, two floodlight towers went off and it was later revealed to be a tactics by IPL to safely evacuate the 24,000 people in the stands.

PBKS-DC players evacuated safely

With the situation getting out of control, the players from both the teams, support staffs and crew members were evacuated by a special train from Dharamsala. The players reached Delhi and most of them will fly back to their home nation as the IPL 2025 hangs in jeopardy.