DC Edit | Hyd mess; Punish Azhar, others

Nowhere else in the world are sports fans treated as cannon fodder with the insolence and indifference as Indians at home when they try to buy tickets for international cricket matches. The Hyderabad Cricket Association, being run in a disputable and controversial manner by disgraced former India cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin, who in the past was banned from the game over match fixing allegations, and a set of other officials, must be held responsible for the incident on Thursday, when over 30,000 fans assembled, many of them overnight, for tickets for the upcoming Sunday fixture between India and Australia, leading to a stampede. The two counters set up by HCA to sell 3,000 tickets offline in the hi-tech city of Hyderabad, a city in which even tea stalls and pakori makers use online sales and door delivery facilities, and the Hyderabad police allowing over 30,000 people to assemble to buy them, show various faults with this one-sided love between cricket fans and the cricketing establishment. Putting the lives and wellbeing of people in jeopardy, leading to chaos and traffic jams for an entire day in a busy part of a big metropolis, is of no value to HCA, but the TRS state government must pay heed.