Bangalore:
There was complete chaos at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore this morning after the police lathi-charged thousands of fans who were waiting to buy tickets.
The match between India and England will be played on Sunday.
The stadium can accommodate 40,000 people but only 7,000 tickets were up for sale. Javagal Srinath of the Karnataka Cricket Association said the fiasco this morning could not be helped. "This is a tradition of Indian cricket...there is nothing new about this," he said, and then went on to joke with reporters about whether they had got tickets for the match. His tone and comments were grating to many. "The biggest challenge we faced was the expectation of people...we cannot meet everyone's expectation...and there's a limit that we can keep people happy...there is nothing we can do..."
(Watch)That's unlikely to be an acceptable explanation for many including the International Cricket Council (ICC), which has on record described ticketing for the World Cup as a PR and management disaster.
Yesterday, the International Cricket Council (ICC) wrote an angry letter to Sharad Pawar, who is the Chairman of the World Cup Central Organising Committee.
(Read: Pawar gets angry letter from ICC over World Cup tickets)The ICC pointed out that with tickets in very short supply, box office sales could turn into a security nightmare.
It also stressed that tickets bought months in advance online from Kyazoonga, the official ticketing partner for the event, are yet to be delivered. Kyazoonga's website also crashed yesterday when tickets for the final went on sale.
Further, the ICC has not been given its share of tickets for matches for its international sponsors who're entitled to complimentary tickets.