Crowd chaos at Premadasa Stadium

An ardent cricket fan residing in the UK, Shanthini Thenuwara, and I went by trishaw from Kollupitya which unfortunately broke down at 6.10 pm at Union Place. With great difficulty we hired another trishaw for Rs. 1500 and proceeded in heavy traffic congestion caused due to people going home after work. 

Finally, we reached the entrance of the R. Premadasa Stadium and while walking there were hordes of spectators in long queues to enter the stadium. When we reached Gate 7 - level one, we found that it was already filled to capacity but managed to find two vacant seats right up front by the barrier. This was a disastrous location because spectators who were queued up were streaming in and continuously obscuring our view. I truly believe there were at least 5000 or more spectators who came in did not have seats and they were naturally very angry after paying Rs. 5000/- for a ticket!  In the meantime, most of them were compelled to sit on the ground on the paths either side of the seats which prevented other people from getting through to either go for drinks and food or to the toilets. It was a total chaos because both of us could not concentrate on watching the NZ innings. 

The RPS ushers and police who were present in numbers were not at all concerned about the situation where spectators were angry because they were deprived of a seat to watch the match. I wish I had stayed at home and watched it in comfort! 

I put the entire blame on the local organisers for this debacle! The ICC should serially take into account such serious lapses which are totally unfair by the local cricketing public who pay high prices and have to suffer at such venues. We will never again go to watch a live cricket match at the R Premadasa Stadium. 

Christopher Dias

(disgruntled spectator)