ICC resents police baton on fans in Bangalore

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has deplored the scarcity of tickets for fans and regretted police lathi charge on people at the M Chinnaswami Stadium here this week.

Police used batons to the swelling mob on Thursday after they protested early closure of ticket counters for the India-England World Cup match at the stadium here on Feb 27.

ICC’s chief executive Haroon Lorgat on Saturday said he was sad for clashes between fans and police over the shortage of tickets.

Now ICC sought its president Sharad Pawar to see the distribution of tickets made without any hassle further.

The stadium on Thursday sold around 8000 tickets. It is a 40,000-seat stadium.

The match was originally scheduled to be held at Eden Gardens but Kolkata failed to prepare the stadium in keeping with ICC deadlines.

The Cricket Association of Bengal accused the ICC of undermining the ground reality saying there had been biasness in the inspection of the stadium on Jan 25.

CAB’s pressident Jammohan Dalmiya, who was also president of ICC, said there had been “under-assessment” and the Edens Gardens has been deprived of India-England match.

Eden has now about 70,000 capacity from its nearly 90,000 and after the renovation would host three World Cup matches between Mar 15-20 where India are not in the fixture.