Many ticket holders refused entry

Due to gross mismanagement, a large number of the genuine ticket holders failed to watch the second one-day International match between Pakistan and England on Friday. Perhaps, no one has learnt any lesson from the sordid happenings of the first one-day match between the two teams at Karachi on Oct 24.

The worst sufferers were the cricket enthusiasts having purchased the tickets for the Sarfraz Nawaz enclosure because free-passes had also been issued to officials of the local administration for the same enclosure without taking into account its seating capacity. Pitiably, the cricket lovers had bought each ticket priced at Rs 30 for Rs 100 in black-market. Large number of ticket-holders when reached the Sarfaraz Nawaz Gate, the personnel of the security agencies refused them entry saying that the enclosure had been allocated to the people belonging to the local administration. On learning of the injustice, a group of journalists reached the Sarfaraz Nawaz Gate which was promptly locked. The persons manning the Gate claimed that it had been closed on the instructions of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The matter was brought to the notice of the PCB advisory committee member Ramiz Raja, who ascertained the factual position from the PCB officials.

A PCB official reached the Sarfaraz Nawaz enclosure and ordered for entry of the ticket-holders. The magistrate on duty obliged for a while. When this reporter visited the enclosure after almost an hour, many more ticket-holders were seen begging those managing the gate to allow them entry. But they chose to accommodate people of local administration having free-passes.

Later the police resorted to baton-charge over the hapless ticket-holders.

During the lathi-charge to ensure the smooth entry of the Punjab home secretary Brigadier (retd.) Ijaz Shah, his son received injuries.

Sale of costly tickets for some enclosures had been poor and the PCB had to drastically cut their rates. The cricket-crazy fans grabbed the opportunity and the enclosures filled up in no time. Tickets priced at Rs 1200, Rs 800 and Rs 600 were reduced fifty per cent. This also belied the claim of the PCB officials that the match had been a complete sell-out.

Many cricket enthusiasts rang the newspaper offices, particularly Dawn, protesting against the high prices of the tickets of some enclosures. They said that their was no fun in reducing the prices of tickets at the last moment. A rational pricing of tickets would have allowed the families to watch the match.

The installation of an electronic scoreboard in the Qadhafi Stadium at a very high cost failed to serve the purpose. The figures appearing on the screen were wrong. So much so that the match-referee Barry Jarman (Australia) called the technical staff and told them that it was foolish to "mis-inform" the spectators in the stadium. This also had no positive effect because the staff could not to handle the job!

Insects which flew into the stadium as the floodlights were switched on, proved a nuisance for the players, particularly the bowlers and fielders of the visiting team. Some mosquitoes and moths struck the eyes of some bowlers during their run up as they were seen wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs to clear them.