The third day's action of the Ranji Trophy fourth round match between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh came to an unusual halt in the final session of play on Friday after a man drove his car onto the field of play and into the pitch at the Palam A Ground here.
Deliberate attempt?
The man, who identified himself as Girish Sharma claimed he was lost and did not see any security personnel.
His claims though weren't justified by his deliberate swerves to drive over the pitch twice, completely ignoring attempts from players and umpires to stop him.
The incident occurred at around 4.40pm, 20 minutes from close of play after the match officials took the half hour extension to make up for the over-rate.
A number of international players like Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma and Rishabh Pant were in the field when the incident took place.
Drive in theater just progressed to #DriveIn match. Shocking scene in between #RanjiTrophy match today witnessed with @GautamGambhir
— Ishant Sharma (@ImIshant) November 3, 2017
I:NDTV pic.twitter.com/fNq44TlZBZ
Very disturbing to see our Ranji Trophy game being interrupted in this fashion today! Thankfully all players are safe ?? pic.twitter.com/OuErA8O6aI
— Suresh Raina (@ImRaina) November 3, 2017
The match referee deemed the pitch "playable" after examining potential damage.