A dangerous pitch led to the abandonment of Sunday's fifth and final limited-overs international between India and Sri Lanka, leading to crowd unrest and immediate recriminations for Indian officials.
Sent in to bat first, Sri Lanka had crumbled to 83-5 on the difficult Kotla pitch before the third delivery of the 24th over, from India's rookie paceman Sudeep Tyagi, rose dangerously and flew past the face of batsman Thilina Kandamby.
It proved the last straw for Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who complained to match referee Alan Hurst and onfield umpires Marais Erasmus and Shavir Tarapore, and players left the field.
As discussions continued between match officials and local organizers outside the boundary, spectators shouted slogans and abuse at the organizers.
Baton-wielding police were called in to clear the stands of spectators, some of whom had vented their anger by smashing chairs. The teams were whisked away from the stadium before the abandonment was announced more than an hour after the suspension.
Later Sunday, confronted with mounting criticism, the Indian cricket board scrapped its pitches panel.
"The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has disbanded its grounds and pitches committee with immediate effect," cricket board secretary Narainswamy Srinivasan said in a statement.
Srinivasan did not say if the BCCI would take action against New Delhi's cricket association, but local organizing committee chief Arun Jetlie apologized to fans.
"We deeply regret and offer our sincere apologies, this is a serious matter that we will inquire," said Jetlie, president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) and a vice president of the Indian cricket board.
"We will definitely establish what went wrong, but at this stage we do not want to indulge in any blame game and speculation."
Jetlie, who praised the police for preventing spectator spill over, said the decision to call off the game was justified.
"The players' security was uppermost in our mind," he said.
The International Cricket Council was to hold discussions with Hurst about the abandonment.
Former India captains Bishan Singh Bedi and Dilip Vengsarkar slammed the DDCA for the fiasco, with Bedi urging strong action against officials.
"The DDCA has made a mess out of the pitch, they should own up the responsibility," said Bedi.
"I wonder how the organizers used a use a pitch for an international match when it had not even been used for domestic Ranji Trophy games."
Vengsarkar said the now-disbanded BCCI pitch panel was responsible.
"It's shameful that such a pitch was prepared for an international match," said Vengsarkar. "Some deliveries were rearing up even from good length."
Nearly two months ago, a one-day international between India and Australia was played on the newly laid Kotla pitch, which India won by seven wickets.
This is the second time and India-Sri Lanka one-dayer has been abandoned due to a dangerous pitch. In 1997, a limited-overs international in the central Indian city of Indore was stopped after just three overs.
The International Cricket Council then banned Indore from hosting any international match for two years.
On Sunday, steeply rising deliveries caused problems to the batsmen from the start and one such delivery from paceman Ashish Nehra struck opener Tillakaratne Dilshan on his elbow. The batsman was given onfield treatment before play resumed.
Failing to cope with the bounce, Sri Lanka slumped to 63-5 as pace ace Zaheer Khan claimed 2-31 from his eight overs, while debutant Tyagi got 1-15. Spinner Harbhajan Singh (1-12) claimed the fifth wicket.
Former Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya, who also featured in the abandoned Indore match 12 years ago, was his team's top-scorer with 31 off 51 balls.
India won the series 3-1.
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