Ticket crisis, long queues and utter chaos at Goa

The capacity of the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium at Fatorda is less than 30,000. Different people quote numbers varying from 25,000 to 30,000. However, the number of people who actually make it in to the stadium is usually a fair bit more. Officials, relatives of officials, friends of people in high places, you name it. Every available free space is taken. Even that has left at least 5000 disappointed outside the ground.

The queues at the gates extend for great lengths, making the approach to the stadium as messy as possible. Accreditation for media, passes for former Ranji cricketers and umpires have been so delayed that many people had no idea where they would be sitting, as late as half an hour before the game. To compound matters, a large number of duplicate tickets have been sold. The fakes, quite cleverly done, are not easy to spot at all times. This has lead to a curious situation where several people with genuine tickets have been turned away from the gates. Sadly the imposters have been allowed to get away scot free.

The other source of great chaos in the ticketing racket is the fact that tickets are being sold in soda factories, bars and liquor stores, apart from the official booths. The contractor for tickets, Chinmay Fallari stoutly denied any malpractice, producing counterfoils for all tickes sold through him. Dayanand Narvekar, President of the Goa Cricket Association however was not convinced with the explanations offered. In all, there is a lot of finger pointing, name calling and yet more confusion. Actually, that's too mild a word. Utter chaos, that's what the situation is at Goa.