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Patna, (Bihar Times): Crazy cricket fans eager to meet their stars Virendra Sehway and Gautam Gambhir pelted stones at the organizers and clashed with the police forcing the latter to use lathis to chase them out of the stadium. One spectator and two policemen were hurt in the clash.
It all started at the prize distribution ceremony on Monday evening when some spectators tried to jump over the barbed wire to meet Sehwag and Gambhir. The police soon swung into action and tried to prevent them from doing so. Upon this they started pelting stones on the police, which in returned lathicharged them. No one was arrested.
However, the city SP, Anwar Husain, denied that the police lathicharge the crowd. He said the police only chased the unruly spectators out of the stadium. He claimed that the police maintained cool notwithstanding the fact that two of their men were hurt.
It needs to be mentioned that Sehwag and Gambhir were here in Patna to participate in the three-day tournament (January 17-19) held for the relief of Kosi flood. Even on the second day, that is, Sunday the crowd became somewhat restive when they did not find Sehwag and Gambhir in the field. They charged the organizers of cheating them of their money. The ticket price was Rs 100 and Rs 500 for the tournament. Some spectators reportedly threw chairs.
However, when the two Indian openers did appear on Monday the crowd became out of control. Though they watched the match peacefully some of them started misbehaving in unruly manners. Notwithstanding the strong police presence they did manage to take the law into their hands.
It needs to be mentioned that Patna had successfully organized two international one day matches: the first one between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe on November 15, 1993 and the second on February 26-27, 1996 between Zimbabwe and Kenya. The second match had to be played in two days because of the rain. Despite rain on the first the crowd maintain cool.
However, the situation was different this time. Though it was the match of no significance the crowd turned up in a large number as they wanted to see the Indian stars, who came for the first time here.
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