Fog hits Delhi’s rocky Ranji journey

The problem arose because the original flight on which the team was to travel this morning was cancelled; eventually, only 12 seats were found on a subsequent flight and the first XI (plus one) were given priority.

‘‘Nature was against us’’, said DDCA secretary Sunil Dev, while thanking all concerned for adjusting the match schedule.

Asked why the team could not have been sent a day earlier, given the likelihood of fog, Dev said there were no flights on Tuesday.

Having lost the battle to make the semifinal grade, Delhi who have collected only six points from as many games and are without a win so far, will be playing for pride in their last league encounter against Andhra, who, too, have the same number of points.

The 12 members who left for Bhubaneswar by the afternoon flight included skipper Vijay Dahiya, Ajay Jadeja, Rajat Bhatia, N S Negi, Varun Kumar, Harender Chaudhary, Vishal Sharma, Sanjay Gill, Rajan Gupta, Abhishek Sharma, Kunal Lal and Saket Bhatia. Incidentally, three members – Dahiya, Rajat and Harender – are Indian Airlines employees.

Salil Oberoi, originally selected among the 15, dropped out last evening, citing fever. ‘‘He was running high temperature and had vomitted last evening. Therefore, we decided not to send him to Vizag for the match,’’ the opening batsman’s mother said this afternoon. He was replaced by Pururaj Singh, who played only one match (vs Railways) this season..