Under fire ICC releases 3000 tickets from its quota for public sale for today's game
Under fire ICC releases 3000 tickets from its quota for public sale for today's game
There was some relief for the aggrieved cricket fans of the Garden City as 3000 fresh tickets went up for sale via online for the India-England game last night.
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| Yuvraj Singh holds a ticket of the India-England match as KSCA secretary Javagal Srinath seems surprised at the Chinnaswamy
Stadium in Bangalore on Saturday. Pic/Suresh KK |
Those were unused tickets returned by the ICC and were made available in batches of 50-100.
"Yes, about 2,500 to 3,000 tickets have been returned to us. However, as far as the 4,000 tickets set aside for the English fans are concerned, they were handed to the ICC. It is not certain whether all those seats have been occupied," Javagal Srinath, Karnataka State Cricket Association secretary, told MiD DAY yesterday.
Srinath became emotional when asked what a common man must to do watch a World Cup game in Bangalore.
"In 1987, I used to stand 50 metres away from the box office for almost five hours in the hope of getting tickets. I used to go back home disappointed," he said.
"The system has always been like this, it cannot change overnight. We are clueless as to what to do when 70,000 people queue up when only 7,000 tickets are available. If anybody has any solutions, we are open to listen," the former India pacer said.
"Blocking of seats in such large numbers has been in practice for the past five decades. We need to change the system to increase the number of seats.
"There is a commitment to the BCCI which has to be met. We also have corporate clients who help us run the association.u00a0 We are just following protocols. There has been no mismanagement on behalf of KSCA," he said.
