Ticketing fiasco a failure for India, cricket fans

Websites crashing, police baton-charging fans, potentially angry sponsors and a court case claiming that too many complimentary tickets have been given out for reasons that have nothing to do with cricket. Add it all up and it amounts to a huge failure on the part of the Indian organisers, writes Richard Lord in the Wall Street Journal.

Cricket is trying to present itself as a bright, shiny, 21st-century product, but the sport can still be appalling at logistics and organization, particularly at any level below the very highest. Putting the responsibility for distributing tickets to a global event in the hands of local bodies is an elementary tactical error, as is making such a pathetically small number of them available to the public. The losers, as ever, are the ordinary fans. If India's cricketing authorities keep treating them like this, sooner or later their patience is going to run out.