Former India skipper Nari Contractor, who had to return home after being stopped at the gate of the D Y Patil Stadium last Sunday for not carrying a valid ticket for the IPL final, said he was flummoxed by the incident, and wondered how the ticket issuing authority erred.
"I was completely stumped when I was asked for a badge to accompany the ticket. I did not have the badge, as it was not given to me along with the ticket. I just turned around and went back," Contractor said on Friday.
"I would not blame the gatekeeper. He was doing only his duty. The main issue is how the Mumbai Cricket Association issued these fake tickets (by IPL)," the former India Test opener said.
Contractor had traveled all the way from his residence in South Mumbai to Nerul, in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai -- a distance of around 35 kms -- only to return home without witnessing the summit clash between eventual champions Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians.
The former India skipper had not witnessed any IPL match this season after the MCA boycotted all home matches of Mumbai Indians that were played at the Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium.
"The final was the first IPL match I would have seen this season, as no passes were issued to me (or others) by MCA for the matches held at the CCI because of the dispute," Contractor said.
Around 200 tickets for the final were handed over by the IPL authorities directly to MCA officials who, in turn, distributed them to their members and former cricketers, but all were stopped at the gate.
It needed the intervention of MCA's joint-secretary Lalchand Rajput, who spoke to IPL's CEO Sundar Raman, before the association's guests were allowed into the stadium, but by then Contractor had chosen to return home.
The MCA will raise the issue of humiliation inflicted on Contractor at the upcoming BCCI working committee meeting in Mumbai on May 2.
"We have written a letter to BCCI that many of our guests were stopped at the gate of the D Y Patil Stadium though they had valid tickets for the final as the persons manning the entry points declared them as fake," MCA's joint-secretary Rajput said on Thursday.
"It needed my personal call to IPL CEO Sundar Raman before they were allowed in after a long wait, but Contractor had, by then, returned home," he said.
"The matter will be taken up at the Board's Working Committee meeting (on May 2)," Rajput added.
MCA has also demanded that in future, the staging of all IPL ties will have to be done through the respective local association, the former India opener said.
This year, for example, Mumbai Indians directly dealt with the Cricket Club of India and held all the seven home matches at the Brabourne Stadium without going through the MCA. The latter, in turn, boycotted those matches.
