Fire in MS Dhoni’s team hotel, Vijay Hazare semi final beween Bengal and Jharkhand postponed

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MS Dhoni and his teammates are safe now . File Pic

Internet Desk: Calamity in Dwarka as the second semi-final match between Jharkhand and Bengal has been forced to be postponed as fire broke into the Jharkhand team hotel. The match will now be now played at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Saturday. Fortunately Jharkhand Captain MS Dhoni and his teammates are safe and are been rescued. It was supposed to be an intriguing contest between the two heavyweight teams from Eastern Zone and reportedly the Bengal players had already reached the venue and came to know about the situation after that.

It is learnt that the fire-accident happened around 6:30am in the morning and around 7:50am things came under control with the help of as many as thirty engines.

“We could smell something burning in the room but that was not that strong. At around 7.30am, when I went in to bathe, all of a sudden there was a lot of smoke and I rushed out picked up valuables and got out of the room to see dense smoke in the corridor. You could barely see beyond 10 metres. There were no fire alarms,” Tapash Charterjee, member of BCCI’s grounds and pitches committee, told the media.

The Jharkhand cricketers were staying in Welcome hotel. It is an ITC hotel in Pinnacle Mall. The hotel is situated in a shopping complex with unchecked restaurants on ground floor. There is construction work going on too at the place. It was only a matter of time that such an incident took place. But the question is whywere the Jharkhand team booked in that hotel, specially when you have player like MS Dhoni.

According to a Jharkhand official, since the hotel is close to the Palam ground they decided to stay there. Welcome Hotel is just 15 minutes drive. The cricketers were later shifted to Lalit hotel.

In the group stage, Jharkhand finished below Karnataka in the group stage with 16 points from six games in Group A. Bengal on the other hand, topped Group C with 20 points from six matches. Sourav Ganguly, the honourable President of the Cricket Association of Bengal had flown to Delhi to hand the Bengal team some tips to tackle Dhoni . Sourav has already discussed a few plans on how to tackle the Dhoni threat with Manoj Tiwari and Sairaj Bahutule.

Bengal team led by Manoj Tiwary returned back to their hotel after a practice session at the Airforce Complex ground, Palam, New Delhi. The final will now be played on Monday, March 20 instead of Sunday, March 19 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi.