It took two flight diversions and a forced night-halt in Varanasi for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) contingent to finally land in Kolkata on Tuesday afternoon. The harrowing midair experience of the contingent started on Monday evening when their flight’s landing in Kolkata was abandoned due to torrential rains in the city.

According to details provided by the KKR media team, the contingent left Lucknow at 5.45pm IST on Monday, and was scheduled to land in Kolkata at 7.25pm. However, at 8.46pm, the team posted another update which said that the flight landed in Guwahati after being diverted from Kolkata due to bad weather.

“Due to inclement weather over Kolkata, the KKR charter flight has been diverted to Guwahati. We’ve just landed here.” Then, at 9.43pm, the team posted another update, saying “We’ve got clearance to fly back to Kolkata now, from Guwahati. Estimated arrival at 11pm.”

However, the second attempt also failed as another message at 1.15am read that the flight was once again diverted, this time to Varanasi, forcing the contingent to spend the night in the holy city.

“(The) flight took off from Guwahati to Kolkata, was scheduled to land at 11pm. (But it) couldn’t land once again due to bad weather, despite several attempts. [It was] diverted mid-air to Varanasi now. Just landed here,” it read.

And finally, at 3am, “The team would be checking into Varanasi hotel for overnight stay. Return flight to Kolkata TBD on Tuesday (7 May) afternoon.”

The flight left Varanasi at around 1.15pm on Tuesday and landed in Kolkata on its scheduled ETA.

“Finally, after Lucknow, Guwahati, Varanasi… We are on our way back to Kolkata,” a message read.

“Final update: KKR players have (finally) landed in Kolkata, and checked into the team hotel! Home sweet home,” another message read.

Fortunately for the Kolkata Knight Riders, and the Indian Premier League (IPL) in general, KKR’s next game is only on Saturday, almost a week’s gap from their last outing, when they beat the Lucknow Super Giants by a whopping 98 runs to reach the No. 1 spot on the IPL 2024 points table.

On Saturday, the Shreyas Iyer-led outfit will take on Mumbai Indians at the iconic Eden Gardens, before finishing off their league engagements in Ahmedabad (vs Gujarat Titans on May 13) and Guwahati (vs Rajasthan Royals on May 19).

Kolkata finally experienced torrential rainfall on Monday after recording record-high temperatures over the past few days and weeks.