When the Game Cannot Even Begin: India’s Air Pollution Reckoning

On Wednesday evening in Lucknow, thousands of cricket fans gathered at the Ekana Stadium, waiting for the fourth T20 International between India and South Africa. They waited through multiple inspections. They watched as the toss time came and went. They saw players warming up wearing surgical masks, attempting to prepare their bodies for athletic performance while protecting their lungs from toxic air. And then, after six inspections and hours of delay, they witnessed something unprecedented: a cricket match abandoned before a single ball could be bowled, not due to rain, but because the air was too poisonous to breathe.

The Air Quality Index in Lucknow that evening hovered above 400, firmly in the hazardous category. For context, an AQI below 50 is considered good; above 300 is hazardous. At 400-plus, every breath is an assault on the respiratory system. The image of India’s star all-rounder Hardik Pandya wearing a surgical mask during warm-ups should be seared into our national consciousness. If elite athletes at peak physical fitness cannot safely play cricket in our cities, what hope do ordinary citizens have for healthy lives?

This was not an isolated incident or an unfortunate anomaly. This is the predictable, annual reality of winter in northern India. In 2017, Indian players wore masks during a Test match against Sri Lanka in Delhi, with an oxygen cylinder kept ready in the dressing room. In 2019, Bangladeshi players vomited on the field during an ODI in the capital. In 2023, Bangladesh cancelled their training session before a World Cup match due to pollution concerns. The warnings have been consistent, loud, and ignored.

The health implications of such severe air pollution are catastrophic and thoroughly documented. As a health professional, I must state this unequivocally: we are conducting a mass experiment on our population, particularly our children, with outcomes we already know will be devastating. Air pollution is now the second leading risk factor for death in India, contributing to approximately 1.67 million premature deaths annually.

Particulate matter of 2.5 microns or smaller penetrates deep into lung tissue and enters the bloodstream, causing far more than just respiratory distress. We are seeing increased rates of cardiovascular disease, strokes, lung cancer, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Recent research links air pollution to cognitive decline in children, reduced IQ levels, and even mental health disorders. At AQI levels above 400, we are essentially asking our citizens to inhale the equivalent of smoking 20-25 cigarettes daily.

Children are particularly vulnerable. Their lungs are still developing, they breathe more rapidly than adults, and they spend more time outdoors. Studies from Delhi have documented that children growing up in highly polluted environments show reduced lung function that may never fully recover. We are condemning an entire generation to compromised respiratory health, reduced physical capacity, and shortened life spans.

The economic burden is equally staggering. The World Bank estimates air pollution costs India approximately 8.5 percent of its GDP annually when accounting for healthcare expenditures, lost productivity, and premature mortality. Beyond these calculations lie the unmeasurable costs: the lost potential of children whose cognitive development is impaired, the reduced quality of life for millions living with chronic respiratory conditions, and the erosion of India’s human capital.

What makes Wednesday’s cancellation particularly damning is that it was entirely predictable. The BCCI was warned. Environmental experts have been sounding alarms about scheduling winter matches in northern India for years. In April 2024, when questioned about hosting a November Test match in Delhi, BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia dismissed concerns, saying pollution “doesn’t happen every year.” Yet here we are, with Lucknow’s air quality at hazardous levels, exactly as predicted. Following the cancellation, BCCI Vice-President Rajeev Shukla called pollution “an emergency that needs to be treated like one.” The question is: why did it take an abandoned international match to acknowledge what millions of Indians experience every winter?

The pattern is clear and deadly. Every year, as winter sets in across northern India, cold temperatures trap pollutants close to the surface. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular emissions, construction dust, industrial activity, and Diwali firecrackers combine into a toxic cocktail. Low wind speeds and temperature inversions prevent dispersion, and cities from Delhi to Lucknow become gas chambers. AQI levels routinely exceed 400, sometimes surpassing 700. Life continues as if this is normal. Children go to school. Workers commute. The poor, who cannot afford air purifiers or the luxury of staying indoors, bear the greatest burden.

We need comprehensive, year-round action, not emergency measures when visibility drops. This requires strict enforcement of emission standards, rapid transition to electric vehicles, massive investment in public transportation, and viable alternatives for farmers currently burning stubble. We need a Clean Air Act with enforcement mechanisms and accountability. We need industrial compliance, construction regulations, and urban planning that prioritizes breathable air.

But we also need something more fundamental: we need to recognize that the right to breathe clean air is a basic human right, as essential as the right to clean water or food. No economic development can justify mass poisoning of our population. No GDP growth rate matters if our citizens cannot breathe.

The cricket match cancellation offers us more than just a wake-up call; it provides a metaphor we cannot ignore. Just as the game could not begin under hazardous conditions, our current model of development cannot continue on this trajectory. The players could wear masks and wait for better conditions or relocate to cities with cleaner air. Our citizens, particularly the economically disadvantaged who lack air purifiers, alternative accommodations, or the option to migrate, have no such choices.

MP Shashi Tharoor’s observation that the match should have been scheduled in Thiruvananthapuram, where the AQI was 68 that evening, highlights the stark disparity within our own nation. Why should breathing clean air be determined by geography? Why should children in Delhi or Lucknow have permanently compromised lung function while children in Kerala or Goa breathe freely?

This is not merely an environmental issue or a policy problem. This is a public health emergency of the highest order, a human rights crisis unfolding in slow motion, and a moral failure of governance. We have normalized the abnormal. We have accepted the unacceptable. We schedule international cricket matches in cities where the air is too toxic for play, send our children to schools where every breath damages their developing lungs, and consider AQI levels that would trigger emergency protocols in other countries as just another winter day.

The abandoned cricket match should mark a turning point. Not because international sporting events matter more than the daily struggle of ordinary citizens, but because it demonstrates so visibly what we have been willing to tolerate. When cricket cannot be played, perhaps we will finally acknowledge that life cannot be lived healthily either.

The alarm bells have been ringing for years through children’s persistent coughs, overflowing respiratory wards, and 1.67 million annual deaths. Wednesday evening in Lucknow simply made the crisis impossible to ignore. The question now is whether we will respond with the urgency this emergency demands, or whether we will wait for the fog to clear, schedule another match in winter, and repeat this cycle until breathing clean air becomes a privilege available only to those who can afford to escape.

Our children deserve better. Our citizens deserve better. India deserves better than air that cancels cricket matches and shortens lives. The game could not begin Wednesday evening. The real question is: when will our serious response to this crisis finally begin?