MCA's U-turn on half tickets

Ticket-holders of rained out India-Oz ODI turned away, as they only have counterfoil and not full ticket

Ticket-holders of rained out India-Oz ODI turned away, as they only have counterfoil and not full ticket

After the November 11 India-Australia match was rained out, the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) had promised that all ticket-holders would be given a full refund.

Even advertisements that the MCA put out mentioned that all those who had a valid paid ticket would get their money back before December 31.

But yesterday, thousands of ticket-holders were refused a refund at Wankhede staidum, as they only had a counterfoil.

The other half of the ticket had been torn out by the gatekeeper at Nerul's D Y Patil stadium on the day of the match.

No Play, No Pay: The valid ticket of India vs Australia encounter at D Y Patil stadium of November 11, which was washed out

Rahul Hariya, who had bought four tickets costing Rs 1,000 each is very angry. "I have a valid ticket! If the MCA doesn't do what's right, I'll approach the consumer court," he said.

Added Mayur Patil, who has three tickets of Rs 700 each, "I have been waiting here for over two hours. I have a a counterfoil, so it looks like I'll never see that money again."

At Wankhede, anticipating that the ticket-holders would get angry, the MCA had arranged for police bandobast.

While MCA's joint honorary secretary Lalchand Rajput was unavailable for comment, the other joint honorary secretary, Hemant Waigankar said, "We will not accept counterfoils.

What will we tell the auditor when he asks for the full ticket?" Added C S Naik, MCA's CEO, "It's not our problem if the D Y Patil stadium's gatekeeper has the other half of the ticket. We need the whole ticket to sanction the refund."

An officer from Oriental Insurance, that company that insured the match, said, "We will discuss this matter seriously." It is learnt that the MCA managing committee will meet to tackle this issue.