Kolkata: The Pakistan cricket team was denied to train under the lights at the Eden Gardens today. Moments after Shahid Afridi and his men won the warm up match against Sri Lanka, Pakistan team management expressed their willingness to practice under the lights to the CAB officials. But Cricket Association of Bengal officials denied their request citing security reasons.
Pakistan was earlier supposed to play a warm up match against Bengal but has to be called off due to non availability of police forces. According to Pakistan team management, they have been not informed about the cancellation of the practice match.
Pakistan is scheduled to face Bangladesh on 16th March at Eden Gardens. They wanted to get acclimatized to the condition. But soon after the Sri Lanka match two floodlights were switched off. The grounds men started pouring water on the ground and the pitch was covered as well.
ICC representative of Pakistan Team Dheraj Malhotra had a heated conversation with CAB grounds committee chairman Debabrata Das. Pakistan media manager Agha Akbar was also present on this occasion. Somewhat disappointed the Pakistan team had to leave the Eden Gardens without being able to practice under the lights. According to CAB insiders, since Pakistan have their practice sessions on Tuesday morning due to security reasons, so they wanted to train under the lights.
Meanwhile Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka by 15 runs at the Eden Gardens in a warm up match on Monday. Pakistan posted 157/5 and later restricted Sri Lanka to 142/9. Mohammad Hafeez scored a blistering 70 of 49 balls. In reply Sri Lanka fell short of the target by 15 runs. Lahiru Thirimanne was the highest scorer for the island nation with 45 runs. Imad Wasim was the pick of the bowlers for Pakistan. He took 4 wickets for 25 runs.