A Swarm of Bees Attacked the Ground during the 36th match of World Cup 2019. Sri Lanka innings were at the slogs when the bees attacked the Riverside Ground and stopped play.
Bees stop play for a while
Sri Lanka, batting first started to lose wickets at regular intervals. South Africa soon proved their decision of fielding first right as their pacers ran through the Lankan batting line up. They were on 194 for the loss of eight wickets in the 48th over when a group of bees entered the ground. Suranga Lakmal (5*) and Isuru Udana (17) were on the crease with Chris Morris delivering the ball. Morris had already two wickets in the kitty and was looking for one more. But the bee attack stopped the play and suddenly the players were lying on the ground. For a moment, the spectators were clueless about what was going around. Luckily, the game wasn’t stopped for a long time and was resumed soon. Once everything was back in action, South Africans continued with their good showing and sent the rest of the Sri Lankan batters soon. Finally, Sri Lanka ended with 203 on board with three balls to spare.
Not the first time
This was as tweeted by ICC not the first instance of beet attack involving Sri Lanka and South Africa. ICC tweeted from its World Cup Twitter account saying, “Bees two nations have a history!” They referred to a similar incident happened a couple of years back. In February 2017, the third one day between Sri Lanka’s tour South Africa was stopped midway due to bee attack. The bees disrupted play twice and the game was officially stopped during the 27th over. Even on that day, Sri Lanka was batting with 117/4 on board. A beekeeper was called to the ground to disperse the bees finally.
Also read: List of ICC cricket world cup winners of all time
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