The IPL 2016 has reached the business end of the season as Sunrisers Hyderabad take on Gujarat Lions in Qualifier 2 on Friday. The knockout match is the penultimate game of the season as the winner goes onto face Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final on May 29 at Chinnaswamy Stadium.
However, by the looks of it, there might not be many people who are looking forward to watching today’s match at the Feroz Shah Kotla. The local team Delhi hasn’t qualified for the playoffs and it seems like there will be lots of empty seats when two neutral teams play. Even the Qualifier 1 also witnessed several empty seats which was played at the same venue.
According to a report in The Hindu, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has told Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) to distribute 2,900 tickets to ensure that there aren’t many empty seats at the Kotla during today’s match.
The DDCA would have to deal with many problems along with this directive of the board. On the financial side, the DDCA would be charged with Rs 8 lakh tax loss on the sale of tickets. Another aspect that the DDCA would have to keep in mind is to not exceed the 10,000-complimentary ticket range that was ordered by the Delhi High Court.
Currently, the DDCA is accepting around 7,000 complimentary tickets to be distributed among first-class players and stuff. In a gesture to accommodate school kids to the stadium, the Justice Mudgal Committee in charge of supervising the conduct of the matches is distributing 150 tickets to students.
A DDCA official said, “Can’t the cash-rich Board buy these tickets and distribute them among poor children.”
According to a report in The Economic Times, this year’s IPL has witnessed the lowest attendance in many venues and Feroz Shah Kotla is one of them. The stadium has a capacity of 41,000 but only 60 percent of the seats were filled at its first game of the season.
The decision of a state unit buying tickets for a tournament conducted by its parent body clearly reflects on the ‘popularity’ of the competition at some of the venues. The cash-rich tournament started just five days after the conclusion of World T20 which was also held in India. The overload of T20 cricket is said to be the main reason behind the empty seats across all the venues.
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