From Our Correspondence
Mumbai - Cricket lovers who rested their derriere on Wankhede Stadium's brand new blue and green bucket seats for the Sri Lanka-New Zealand tie, say they are narrow and uncomfortable for a seven-hour match. The struggle for those who managed to bag a WC final ticket through online might be far from over.
Have a lucky ticket to the World Cup finals at the Wankhede Stadium on April 2? You might just have been better off stretching your legs while watching the match on TVat home.
A fan who watched the Sri Lanka and New Zealand match said , the second match to be held at the revamped stadium, was wriggling the whole time in one of the brand new bucket seats that have replaced the old benches at Mumbai's cricket landmark. The bucket seats are small. They are uncomfortable, and would probably be more so for someone with a big behind.
The bucket seats were installed as part of a Rs 275 crore revamp that the stadium kicked off in 2008, a massive overhaul that involved breaking down the benches and cement blocks that had functioned as seats for spectators since 1974. In fact, authorities have claimed how they sacrificed seating capacity for comfort, replacing benches with bucket seats, bringing down seating capacity from 38,000 to 33,317.
While that's slightly more restricting than a regular office chair -- a spot measurement at out own office revealed that our chairs measured 18 inches in depth and width -- Wankhede's bucket chairs don't have the comfort that arm rests, cushioning, and free space between the back and base, all features of regular office chairs, provide. It's definitely not the most ergonomic situation for your spine to be in for the seven-hour duration of a cricket match.
The city's orthopaedic surgeons agree. The bucket seats you are mentioning are not optimal. The back is not contoured, and so you are forced to hunch forward in your seat, while the seat, which should be inclined a bit backwards like a car seat, is actually inclined forward and downward. Lastly, having a hinge that connects the two portions, like a seat in a movie theatre or even most stadia abroad, gives you a little more leeway to be able to accommodate and position yourself comfortably. But the seats at Wankhede don't seem to offer that. For instance, The Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne Park, where The Australian Open is held every January, has bucket seats that fold up when not in use. They can be pulled down and make it easier to accommodate yourself.
While some may argue that the seats will pose greater discomfort only for the oversized, the fact that the distance between two bucket seats is just three inches means you are likely to smack your neighbour each time you flay your arms about in excitement at a sixer.
An MCA source agreed, on condition of anonymity: "Yes, the seats are quite snug, and the distance between individual seats is not much.
