Story highlights
Incident involving arrow at English cricket game
Match abandoned between Surrey and Middlesex
Oval stadium evacuated
A “metal tipped” arrow was fired onto the field of play during a professional English cricket game in London, British police said Thursday.
Nobody was hurt, but the game at the Oval ground between Surrey and Middlesex was abandoned as police evacuated the stadium.
“Police were made aware on Thursday, 31 August of reports that an arrow or crossbow bolt had been loosed into the Oval Cricket ground,” said a Metropolitan Police statement.
“At this early stage it is believed that the object came from outside of the ground. There have been no arrests. We retain an open mind as to motive.”
A picture on Middlesex’s Twitter feed showed one of the match officials holding the arrow.
Surrey player Stuart Meaker wrote on Twitter: “Well … we have just officially gone off the field because a metal tipped arrow just landed on the pitch.”
A spokesperson for Surrey County Cricket Club told CNN the “arrow landed between balls, a couple of pitches away from the players. The umpires took it out of the ground and took the players off.”
He also said that spectators were told to get under cover in the concourse before being told to evacuate the stadium.
The England and Wales Cricket Board – the sport’s regulatory board in Britain – was not immediately for comment.