Gross mismanagement mars India, Sri Lanka match

PUNE—From severe shortage of tickets to under-prepared ground to chaotic arrangements for public and media marked the fourth one-day international cricket match between India and Sri Lanka held here Thursday.
There was absolute chaos as the public, the media and the organising authorities - the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) knew nothing about what was happening at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here.
A mystery hung over the sale of tickets as only 11,196 were made available for the public despite the stadium having a 26,000-odd capacity.
‘We have been burdened with demands for complementary passes,’ said a senior official of the MCA.
Varun Datta, a senior citizen and an ardent cricket fan said: ‘Despite standing in serpentine queues for long hours, we could not get tickets. They were apparently sold out Monday itself.’
The tickets, according to officials, were sold through the various branches of Vidya Sahakari Bank from early Monday and in most cases, within an hour of opening of the counter.
Even Thursday saw utter chaos, especially at the press box, where several members of the public were let in as they carried ‘VIP passes’.
As if the resultant lack of space was not enough, frequent squabbles between officials and VIP pass-holders was a cause of severe distraction as people just walked up and down the press box.
Several people from the media also had to wait more than three hours outside the stadium.
In fact the media coordinator for the match, a sitting tennis referee himself, had washed hands of his responsibility at the last moment and was officiating a tournament.
One MCA official was heard shouting at a senior agency sports reporter: ‘I will throw you out of the stadium’.
Even basic facilities like a media centre with Internet facilities were not provided.
When asked an official simply said: ‘Use your laptop or make STD calls from the telephone booth provided’.
Another senior official confided the reason for the chaos. ‘After the last match was played here in 2003, a new committee took over the charge of affairs with only a handful of old players remaining in the committee.
‘Now while these new guys do not have the experience in organising international events, the handful of seniors have washed their hands off and are hardly cooperating,’ he said.
Former Sri Lankan skipper Arjuna Ranatunga had bemoaned the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) schedule for the ongoing seven-match series before it began - expressing disappointment that second-rung cities like Nagpur, Pune and Rajkot were chosen.
The British media and the England Cricket Board had last week expressed unhappiness about the choice of the venues like Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Indore for the forthcoming series beginning March 8, even calling it a insult to English cricket.—Agencies