Fans peeved as tickets ‘sold out’ in minutes in Visakhapatnam

VISAKHAPATNAM: All is not well in the Andhra Cricket Association. There is widespread discontentment among the stakeholders, especially with the way things have been managed for the second ODI game between India and Australia, to be played on Sunday afternoon.
It is not the first time an international game is being held at the Dr YSR ACA-VDCA stadium but never before was there so much disgruntlement among the members.The constant refrain one could hear from most of the members and cricketers is that things have ‘gone bad to worse’ in ACA. One thing that one could ascertain was of increased ‘political interference’ in ACA affairs.
Sources said with president P Sarath Chandra Reddy stuck in the Delhi excise scam, secretary SR Gopinath Reddy is calling the shots.
The cricket fans, too, were peeved as many of them failed to lay their hands on a ticket as both online and offline ticket sales finished within a span of minutes.
The organisers had announced that they were putting up tickets for online sale for three days — March 10 to 12 — but the tickets were allegedly lapped up within no time. The offline ticket sales were sold at three centres in the city on March 14, but the sale was only for two hours.
Fans have been thronging the stadium every day, hoping against hope to get tickets, despite officials declaring that all tickets were sold out.
“I tried to book a ticket online but was not successful. Me and my friends made several attempts for the last several days, but the screen would go blank every time we tried. How can tickets be sold out so fast? This is really baffling,” alleged a former Andhra age-group player.
Another person associated with the Visakhapatnam district cricket association said some of his friends tried to get a ticket offline but the counters were closed almost as soon as they opened. “Very few tickets were actually sold. Most of them were cornered by members of a political party,” he claimed.
ACA secretary Gopinath Reddy told TOI that the capacity of the stadium is 27,000. Of these, 23,000 tickets were put on sale — 11,000 online and 12,000 tickets offline. The remaining were allotted to district associations, ACA cricket clubs, players, and affiliated wings. He condemned the allegations that only a few tickets were sold offline. “We have CCTV footage of queues till evening. We put online sale for three days with a released quota per day,” he said.