Transit of Indian team's Ireland medals delayed

NEW DELHI: If it was the Indian cricketers who were caught up in a traffic jam in UK the other day, their bags containing the trophies they won in Ireland have also had to suffer a similar fate.

The team's winners' trophy, Sachin Tendulkar's man of the series, and Yuvraj Singh's and Gautam Gambhir's man of the match medals - won after the 2-1 defeat of South Africa in a ODI series in Belfast - have all been caught up in a 'backlog' of bags on their way to India.

British Airways, the airlines in which the bags were to arrive via London last week, allayed fears that the medals from Indian team's rare overseas win, have been lost.

They have said the items would soon be 'reunited with the respective passengers' at the earliest.

"The bags are not missing, they are not lost. They have been delayed. We are bringing them back to India as soon as possible," Radhika, a British Airways spokesperson, said on Thursday.

"Even now the flights are arriving from the UK and some bags might have already come. We are confident of clearing the entire backlog before the end of this week," she said.

The airlines blamed the backlog on the delay in transfer of bags due to heightened security measures at London's Heathrow airport.