Blackmarketeers have a ball in Cuttack

Who said the public has lost interest in cricket? Within a couple of hours of the ticket windows at the Barabati Stadium opening for business, all tickets for the first one day international between India and Zimbabwe have been sold out.

Sold out, that is, before the genuine cricket fans even got to the ground to buy the tickets. Blackmarketeers got in there early, bought up tickets in bulk, and are now having a ball selling the tickets at highly inflated rates, both in Cuttack and in Bhubaneswar.

"We just couldn't understand how tickets disappeared so quickly," Arabinda Mishra, a fan of the game, complained after finding the 'Sold Out' sign outside the ticket windows despite getting to the ground early in the morning.

It was not difficult for the fans to figure out what was happening -- after all, the rule is that only two tickets will be given to each person in line. Which means that even if all windows are operating and the counter clerks working to peak efficiency, it will take several hours of continuous selling before all the tickets are gone. In other words, there was no way they could all have been sold out before afternoon on day one.

It was equally easy to figure out that blackmarketeers could not have cornered the tickets without official connivance.

Realising this, enraged fans went on a rampage on Wednesday morning, pelting stones at the Orissa Cricket Association office, damaging windows and furniture, breaking police barricades near the ticket windows, and destroying hoardings and such.

Panicked OCA officials embarked on a damage control exercise. Assistant secretary Satya Mohanty, thus, told the fans that not all tickets had been sold, that quite a sizeable chunk remained in the hands of the Oriental Bank of Commerce, authorised bankers for the association, and that these would go on sale on Wednesday.

However, it turned out that no such tickets could be put on sale. The bank officials refused comment, the OCA failed to explain why the tickets had not materialised, and that only enraged the fans further.

OCA general secretary Ashirbad Behra denied allegations that the association was in league with blackmarketeers. Asked to explain what happened, Behra said, "The OCA had put up notices at all counters that the tickets had been sold out." But to whom? And when? Behra refrained from comment.

The only other statement he would make was that the Oriental Bank was handling sale of tickets, "and therefore there is no scope for tickets to have been channelled to blackmarketeers."

That is the official position. Meanwhile, the ground reality is that the ticket windows at the Barabati Stadium continue to display Sold Out signs. However, if you want a dozen tickets and are willing to pay the price, all you have to do is walk around the bylanes near the stadium, and soon enough, someone will sidle up to you and say, 'pssst, want tickets?'

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