Mohali, Mar 28: The Punjab Cricket Association has arranged for 200 complimentary passes which will be distributed among Pakistan fans for the World Cup semi-final which will be held in Mohali on Wednesday.
The PCA president I S Bindra said that as a special case, the association after requesting some of its own members to stay out, had today sent 200 complimentary passes to the PCB to enable the fans from across the border to watch the match here.
"Earlier, we had sent them 50 tickets. Some of our members will not watch to accommodate the visiting fans," Bindra informed.
Bindra also informed that PCA had released 14,000 tickets for general public and it was a complete sell-out within two days from its designated outlets and bank branches.
The PCA President said that 6,000 tickets had been given to the ICC, 1800 to PCA members, 1800 to state associations while "least number has been kept for the VVIPs."
"To say that PCA has gone overboard to accommodate the VVIPs at the cost of genuine fans won't be correct. Even to the PCB, my offer today was more than 700, but they said that completing formalities for so many fans would take time and requested for 200 tickets, passes for which we gave," he said.
He said that allegations that tickets had "vanished" were false and fans had never been kept in the dark.
Asked if former India captain Kapil Dev had been invited to watch the match, Bindra said that this time they had not sent any individual invites, while their priority would always to first accommodate former cricketers and their families.
He said that former cricketer Ajit Wadekar and some others had called him up for the passes and he had arranged it for them.
"For PCA, people like Sunil Gavaskar, Wadekar and others are bigger celebrities and we will always see that they are accommodated," he said, adding that it was a big honour for PCA to host the match, which will have a TV audience of 2 billion around the world.
Meanwhile, Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today reviewed the arrangements for holding the high-voltage clash. Badal, who is also looks after the state home ministry reviewed arrangements at a high-level meeting with top cops.
"There was a review of the security, traffic, comfort of people, players, VVIPs to ensure everything goes on perfectly," Badal said in a media interaction here, in which Bindra and PCA Joint Secretary, G S Walia were also present.
Badal said that he doesn't have any information about Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her husband Robert Vadra were coming to watch the match.
He, however, said that a delegation of about 100 people would be coming with the Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Asked if any bilateral meeting would be held between the two PMs, Badal said the Centre would be knowing about this and added he had no information.
Badal requested the fans to reach the stadium 2-3 hours before the start of the match so that they do not face any difficulty in view of the VVIP movement.
Badal appealed to the local residents to spare rooms for the visiting Pakistani guests since hotel accommodations were completely sold out.
"We are setting up a control room here for the purpose so that anyone willing to give his room can contact us," he said, adding that officers of the Punjab Government as a noble gesture had decided to voluntarily give one room to accommodate the Pakistan fans.
"Security is foolproof and we have deployed adequate police to ensure the event passes off smoothly. Our DGP is in touch with the NSG, SPG and with top officers of the Union Government," Badal said.
On allegations that tickets for the Mohali tie were being sold in the black market by some, Badal said that SSPs had been asked to strictly deal with any incident that comes to their notice and also asked the media to help them in this regard.
Commenting on some media report that Reliance Industries Chairman, Mukesh Ambani offered Rs 4-5 crore for a corporate box, Bindra said that these reports were "baseless and there was no truth in these." PTI
