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New Delhi: Crowd trouble marred what president Arun Jaitly termed a ‘‘historic day’’ for the Delhi and District Cricket Association on Tuesday. The DDCA, celebrating its Platinum Jubilee year, inaugurated the ‘‘fully-renovated and floodlit stadium’’ with Team Delhi playing their second practice match at the Ferozeshah Kotla. Whether the franchisee had a part to play or not, the exercise was marked by chaos. Free entry had earlier been advertised in newspapers, but much to the dismay of the common man, nobody was allowed in without a ‘‘pass’’. The privileged few decided to capitalise on the turnaround by the DDCA by selling their passes in black. The passes were sold at the rate of anything between Rs 250 and Rs 500 (per pass). When the cops were confronted about the goings-on, they claimed helplessness. ‘‘It’s not our problem that these guys can’t make it inside for the match. The DDCA first told us to let people in for free and then suddenly during the afternoon they changed their stance,’’ said an inspector on duty. Even before the programme could commence there was an inhouse skirmish between two DDCA members. Sunil Dev (sports secretary of DDCA), who was also felicitated at the function as he was the manager of the World T20-winning Indian team, broke into a verbal volley with his counterpart CK Khanna (vicepresident of DDCA). There was an apparent mess-up with the handling of player’s car-parking passes. Somebody had forgotten to distribute player’s passes, causing confusion where Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir’s cars would be parked. ‘‘This is what happens when you distribute passes to all the inconsequential relatives, uncles and aunties,’’ Dev was overheard screaming. With the fight not showing signs of dying down, DDCA president Arun Jaitley, who was waiting at the gate to receive chief minister Sheila Dixit and BCCI president Sharad Pawar, had to intervene. ‘‘This can be obviously discussed later. For God’s sake don’t make a scene out here,’’ Jaitley told Dev. It didn’t matter that a practice match was in progress. The crowd wanted to get in, anyhow. After a while even the pass-sellers were in a spot. A PR professional from a FM radio-station who had come with the intention of giving out passes only to people who gave correct answers to his questions was robbed off all his passes by the unruly mob. Another one, who claimed that he got two passes from his ‘‘uncle who works as a driver at the DDCA’’, soon found himself under the kosh. He was roughed up and wasn’t allowed to go until he succumbed to the bids put up by the crowd and agreed to sell. Some of them left heartbroken since they were certain it was all the handiwork of the cops, who according to them were in possession of some of the passes and were selling it themselves. The Kotla will be hosting its first IPL match on April 19th and clearly the organisers will have to come up with a better performance than this chaotic rehearsal.
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Some of them left heartbroken since they were certain it was all the handiwork of the cops, who according to them were in possession of some of the passes and were selling it themselves.
Hahaha...that is hilarious! DDCA and the Delhi police better clean up their act before the IPL games begin. It would be a shame to see people being roughed up and robbed outside the stadium during the tournament.
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My fav quote

‘‘This is what happens when you distribute passes to all the inconsequential relatives, uncles and aunties,’’ Dev was overheard screaming. :hysterical:With the fight not showing signs of dying down, DDCA president Arun Jaitley, who was waiting at the gate to receive chief minister Sheila Dixit and BCCI president Sharad Pawar, had to intervene. ‘‘This can be obviously discussed later. For God’s sake don’t make a scene out here,’’ Jaitley told Dev.
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