WC ticket sale starts amid chaos
Police charge batons to discipline cricket fans who thronged a ticket outlet at Dhanmondi-2 in the capital Sunday morning as sale of ICC Cricket World Cup tickets starts. Photo: Star/Anisur Rahman
Star Online Report
Chaos and clashes at different city ticket outlets marked the start of sale of the tickets for upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup.
Standing in queues in front of different branches of City and Agrani banks where people started lining up since Saturday, the wait came to an end lastly at 10:00am Sunday.
A Sunday morning visit through the city gave Star Online an evidence of long queues, some more than one kilometre.
Several outlets including those at Bangabandhu Avenue, Mouchak, Darus Salam and Mirpur area of the city saw clashes.
A photographer of Daily Kaler Kontho was injured in front of a ticket-selling centre at Dhanmondi-2 during a clash between police and the cricket fans.
Earlier, hundreds of cricket-lovers thronged some 80 ticket outlets in the city from Saturday to secure tickets for the World Cup 2011.
At around 5:00pm Saturday, roughly 16 hours before opening the Mirpur-1 branch of City Bank, the queue had gone up to around 3,000 people. Most of the ticket seekers were from the nearby areas but there were some from other districts, where the ticket allocations are scarcer than the capital.
But in all practicality, no more than 480 tickets can be sold on a day from a single booth, City Bank said on Friday.
A total of 15,127 tickets will be available for public consumption but it was not clear from where the tickets for the dignitaries will come from.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has started selling of tickets through two designated banks--City Bank and Agrani Bank.
Bangladesh is one of the co-hosts of the 2011 World Cup Cricket and will host eight matches including two quarterfinals at home.
The opening ceremony of the tournament will take place at the Bangabandhu National Stadium on February 17.