Utkanth Tripathi, a 22 year old guy from Vadodara had come to Ahmedabad on Sunday night with his friend to buy the tickets of the quarter final to be played between India and Australia at Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera in Ahmedabad. After standing in queue for more than 6 hours he ended getting some injuries as he was one of the victims of those who were lathicharged by police.
First it was Bangalore, then Nagpur and now ticketing fiasco continues at Ahmedabad in ICC CWC 2011. Fans were disappointed when Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) announced that all the tickets are sold. It was surprising as on day 2 all the tickets were sold in less then 45 minutes. On the Day 1 (March 20) GCA had sold the tickets of a particular stand, priced at 100 Rs. It is quite obvious and understandable that around 18,000 tickets cant be sold in less than 45 minutes, especially when you are giving only 2 tickets to one person. Well, the police persons were coming in between the queue and were buying 5-6 tickets together. But the fans didn’t oppose as they had a fear that police may throw them out of queue if they oppose them.
People had called GCA to get information on the sales of the tickets but the officials who picked the phone behaved as a typical government office employ and said that the advertisement will be given in newspapers. Well, the advertisement was given in the newspapers but the blunder was 2 different advertisements were given in 2 different newspapers. They had complete different info from each other. These ads mislead the fans and kept them away from purchasing tickets.
The black market of tickets has started. 100 Rs. Tickets are being sold out for 800-1000 Rs. 800 Rs. Tickets are being sold out for 2500-3000 Rs. More surprising thing is people are selling these tickets out in front of the policemen. GCA and BCCI don’t care about this. ICC also doesn’t care about the issue as they have got around 22,000 tickets of their quota. After the fiasco at Bangalore and Nagpur, tickets should have been sold online and not at the venue to avoid all this. Even ballot system should have come into play for such a big Quarter Final.
Narendra Modi, Gujarat CM who always talks about less corruption in the state is also a president of GCA but he also didn’t look into this matter. Well, at last the fans will have to suffer. Either pay 1000 Rs, for 100 Rs. Ticket or watch the match at home.
