It was a nightmare for the thousands of cricket fans who descended on the Gymkhana Ground with the hope of purchasing tickets for the India- Australia, 3rd T20I scheduled to be held at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium (Uppal) on Thursday.
With many waiting in long queues since early morning, chaos ensued which saw the police resort to lathi charge.
Although there were reports of a woman succumbing to the injuries during the scuffle, a top police official at the spot insisted with the local media that the rumour was not true. He added that only some were rushed for treatment of minor injuries.
“We don’t think they even sold 100 tickets at the two counters even after two hours of waiting after the sale began at 10am today,” one of the fans said.
“It was a clear case of poor handling of the sales,” another person said, questioning the logic of the Hyderabad Cricket Association selling tickets physically when online transactions could have been more viable.
“We came here to buy tickets not to face this kind of treatment. We blame the HCA for this complete mess.”
There were allegations that only a combined 3000 tickets were available over the two sales counters.
The sale of tickets were stopped around 3.30 pm. The police had to disperse the crowd after the HCA officials declared that all tickets had been sold out.
In a related development, Telangana Sports Minister V. Srinivas Goud, summoned the HCA officials, including president Mohammad Azharuddin, to seek an explanation.
"We want to know how many tickets were up for sale and how many complimentary tickets were given. This is a total failure of the HCA. It is disgusting that the HCA officials, despite being warned about this kind of trouble cropping up, didn’t bother to take corrective measures" the minister said.
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