Many cricket fans, who bought their tickets online for the Barabati Stadium T20 on Wednesday, staged a dharna in front of the stadium gates as they were denied entry into the stadium to watch the match between India and Sri lanka.
Security guards manning the gates asked the online ticket holders to vacate the place as their tickets did not have the printed signature of the Cuttack city DCP and were without seat numbers. Taken aback by such treatment, the angry fans resorted to noisy protests.
Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) working committee chairman Dhiren Palai, however, stepped in and allowed the ticket holders to enter in the stadium. On the other hand, the local Cantonment police detained an employee of the agency that was in charge of the online tickets.
In another unfortunate development, the bus, carrying Indian players from Bhubaneswar to Cuttack for the match in the evening, arrived at the stadium late by almost 25 minutes. Sources said the bus developed certain technical problems on the way and was held up.
“There was no vehicular traffic jam on the NH between Bhubaneswar and Cuttack,” said twin city traffic DCP Srikrushna Samal, adding that the team buses were held up for few minutes near the stadium as all roads of Cuttack city leading to the stadium were jam-packed.