SA national anthem cut short before match

In an embarrassing goof-up, the recording of South Africa's national anthem stopped midway during the pre-match ceremony of their World Cup opener against the West Indies in Delhi on Thursday, leading to a red-faced ICC apologising to the Proteas team management.

The South African players, led by Graeme Smith, continued to sing without the music after the recording suddenly stopped before the Group B match at the Feroze Shah Kotla.

- World Cup coverage

It is learnt that the International Cricket Council has apologised to South Africa for the goof-up, saying the incident happened due to poor quality of the recording and will ensure a better quality version in future.

South African fans reacted strongly on the incident on social networking site Twitter.

"As if the World Cup has not been boring enough, now our national anthem gets butchered. Another failure," wrote one fan on Twitter.

Another fan wrote, "...messed up our national anthem stopping in the middle ... so who's to blame?"

"What a joke! All the more reason for South Africa to WASTE the West indies!

"Awesome to see crowds finishing our anthem after the sound system died," wrote another fan.

Besides the South African national anthem goof-up, the journalists who have come to cover the match also faced a tough time after the turnstiles erected at the media gates did not function properly.

Those scribes who wanted to enter the stadium early were denied access by the securitymen as the turnstiles could not read the accreditations and ICC Head of Media and Communications Colin Gibson had to intervene to let them in.