KARACHI, 8 March 2004 — Ticket sales for the first one-day international cricket match between India and Pakistan had to be suspended yesterday after crowds turned violent.

The scores of fans who arrived at the city’s National Stadium early in the morning quickly swelled to thousands, all wanting to buy tickets for the match on Wednesday.

But the fast-growing crowd quickly became frustrated by the fact that tickets were only available at three booths, with a total of just eight sales windows.

Police made a baton charge into the crowd and closed the main gate of the stadium after being pelted with stones by disgruntled fans.

“I came to the stadium at around 6.30 a.m., but now I am going home after wasting more than six hours without getting a ticket,” college student Mazahir Abid Ali said.

“This is unfair, how could 25,000 people buy tickets from one point,” Ali said.

Pakistan Cricket Board chief executive Ramiz Raja said the cricket board would send a two-member delegation to Karachi today to supervise the sale of tickets. The board now plans to establish around 15 booths around the stadium to facilitate ticket purchase.

“We are even planning to establish booths at the main centers in the (Karachi) city which would ease out the pressure at the national stadium,” Raja said.

Fans gathered at the stadium on Saturday, only to be informed that the sale of tickets was delayed by 24 hours due to printing problems.

“We have suspended the sale (of tickets) for just one day and hopefully the things will be sorted out tomorrow,” PCB cricket operations manager Zakir Khan told reporters Saturday.

Raja said yesterday that the crowd should “not get frustrated” and must show patience. “Karachi is a big city of around 14 million people, but the capacity of the national stadium is just 33,000,” Raja, himself a former test cricketer, said. “People should realize this fact and should not get impatient.”

The PCB has already sold many of the more expensive tickets for the match via the internet, but Raja said that more than 20,000 tickets were still available.

The PCB was forced to decrease the price of general stands’ tickets from $2.50 $1.75 at the demand of the Karachi City Cricket Association.