LAHORE, Dec 10: A sudden failure of one of the six transformers here on Sunday disrupted over an hour’s play at the Gaddafi Stadium during the third day-night International between Pakistan and the West Indies.

Play remained suspended for about 66 minutes as the floodlight towers went off following the failure of the transformer at about 1:15pm. The cold and cloudy afternoon had forced the umpires to ask for the floodlights towers to be switched on at 12.15pm but the sudden breakdown of power stopped play during in 47th over of the West Indies innings, leaving both the teams and fans extremely annoyed.

Realising the catastrophical situation at hand, the Pakistan Cricket Board officials rushed for WAPDA’s help amid reports of President Pervez Musharraf’s arrival for the match. In a rare show of efficiency, WAPDA then moved swiftly to install its emergency generator which ensured the resumption of play at about 2:30pm.

Ramzan Ghuman, a senior WAPDA official, later disclosed to Dawn that he had been advising the PCB to acquire a back-up system for the transformers to avoid such incidents but his advice obviously fell on deaf ears.

What really amazed everyone at the stadium was the fact that no official announcement was made about the unfortunate situation as thousands waited in total amazement as to what had actually happened. It clearly reflected poor organisation of the PCB which has its headquarters at the Gaddafi Stadium for over 25 years now.

To save face, the PCB did issue a press statement later which said: ”The floodlighting system of the Gaddafi Stadium has six poles each with its own transformers. The lights were operational during the practice sessions and till 1.15pm on the match day. At 1.16pm, transformer number 3 developed an internal fault and disrupted the power supply ring connecting to all six transformers.

“After detecting the fault, the faulty transformer was isolated from the main ring and supply to tower number 3 was restored through generator. Main supply was restored at 3.45pm and the play resumed at 4.15pm.”

President Musharraf finally arrived at 4.30pm after confirming that the match had been resumed.

After his arrival, all the gates were immediately closed for public as and stringent security measure were put in place.