The penultimate T20I was abandoned due to severe fog at Ekana International Cricket Stadium.
The match, scheduled to commence at 7 PM, had to be called off at 9:30 PM after six inspections by the umpires, with poor visibility making play impossible.
The abandonment has once again raised questions over the BCCI’s scheduling of international fixtures in northern part of the country during peak winter months, a period when fog has repeatedly disrupted games.
Amid the outrage, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia highlighted the unpredictable nature of winter weather, noting this was an exceptional situation despite the board’s efforts to reschedule domestic games.
"No, it is a solitary weather situation. Normally we have this kind of weather in the month of January. This time it is quite early, number one, and number two, we had a match in Dharamsala also the other day. Dharamsala is a much colder place. So you cannot predict fog, and rain. Nowadays cricket is a throughout the year annual event for 12, and we have to have the matches," Saikia told IANS.
"When we saw that there were big disturbances from fog in northern India in the month of January, we already restructured our domestic cricket matches. That's why there is a big gap between Ranji Trophy matches in North India. If you look at our schedule, we have bifurcated the Ranji Trophy matches into two parts. During the first part of January, we are not scheduling any matches in North India from last year onwards, if you follow that. This Lucknow incident is an exceptional weather condition. We had three matches in North India -- one in Chandigarh, Dharamshala and one in Lucknow -- all are in the same build.
"If we had got any sense that there will be something like this, you can take the example of rescheduling or swapping of the Test match in New Delhi. If you look at the West Indies match, the second Test was played in New Delhi. In fact, the second Test was scheduled to happen in Kolkata. The first Test match against South Africa was originally scheduled to happen in New Delhi. But when we got to know about this smog situation after Diwali, we swapped the matches of Kolkata and New Delhi. But Lucknow is an exceptional situation. It was not foreseen, and this kind of predictability is not there in weather conditions.
"I don't think Lucknow always has this kind of fog at this part of the time. Maybe in the first part of January, it is normal, but we are still in the second or third week of December. We still have 15 days time to be in that situation. That is one of the tough things we saw yesterday, and for this, we cannot have any kind of rescheduling."
The venues allotted for the all-format bilateral series against South Africa included Cuttack, New Chandigarh, Dharamsala, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Ranchi, Raipur, Visakhapatnam, Guwahati and Kolkata during November and December.
The series will conclude with the fifth T20I at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Friday (December 19).