The Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) closed the sale of tickets for the third India-Australia One-Day International to be played at Indore, a day ahead of schedule citing rush of fans, a senior official of the cricket body said.
Initially, the sale of tickets was to take place until tomorrow, but a large number of fans turned up at the Holkar stadium since last night, forcing MPCA to close the sale on Monday, the official said.
The two teams will play the third ODI of the five-match rubber on September 24 at the Holkar stadium.
Superintendent of Police (SP), East Zone, Awadhesh Kumar Goswami, said, “Thousands of people, including women and young, girls queued up at the ticket counters after 10 last night as ticket sale was scheduled to start from 10 am today. Some of the women were in queue throughout the night with their kids.”
Speaking at a joint press conference with the MPCA office-bearers, Goswami added, “In view of these circumstances, we did not want to take any risk about the security and convenience of women. Therefore, we asked the MPCA to end the sale of tickets by today.”
MPCA secretary Milind Kanmadikar said the sale of tickets closed at 5 pm today.
He said “20,000 tickets were made available for sale for the ODI at the stadium, which has a capacity to accommodate 28,500 spectators. The demand for tickets is quite high due to the overwhelming response from cricket fans.”
MPCA officials said earlier selling of the tickets was scheduled from September 18 to 20.
Online Source The Indian Express
