A siren stops play

Stoppages in play aren’t uncommon and this series has had its fair share. There’s been rain, plenty of it, bad light and good light – play was bizarrely not started because the umpires “expected” the rains to come. An umpiring botch up played it’s part in a 15-minute stoppage – when Ganga caught and everyone was caught napping – and in a tribute to Sachin Tendulkar, there’ve been sight-screen hassles.

At 5pm on the fourth day, a fire alarm stopped play. For nearly five minutes, the umpires and the players watched bemused as the sirens went off in various corners. Kumble was getting ready to bowl but there was no way Rudi Koertzen was going to allow proceedings to start. The alarm went off yesterday as well, just that it happened during the lunch break and nobody seemed to take it too seriously. The best part about the whole episode was that nobody appeared to want to find out about the fire, and if at all there was any, but instead focused on turning the "damn thing" off. If only there had been a real fire, it would have been a classic case of Nero playing cricket when Rome burnt.