Crowds at ACA-VDCA stadium on cloud nine

Visakhapatnam: All walks of life fully enjoyed with the India’s star batsman and skipper Virat Kohli’s unbeaten century against the West Indies on Wednesday. The entire ACA-VDCA stadium resounded with the Kohli’s name after he finished 10,000 runs in One Day International career.

Though Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Rohit Sharma disappointed the cricket lovers with poor their performance, thousands of audiences experienced a lovely cricket of the second One Day International match against the West Indies held here on Wednesday. Telugu Cricket Star Ambati Rayudu, who scored 70, enthralled the audience with perfect strong shots.  

With the strict police rules and traffic regulations, the cricket lovers failed to enter the stadium before the start of the match. Over 60 per cent against the total capacity of the stadium 27,500 only witnessed the first ball of the match. However, the entire stadium filled up after 4 pm.

Not only at the cricket stadium, cricket lovers enjoyed the match by arranging community meetings with the arrangements of big screens. The hotels and function halls also arranged ODI parties by arranging big screens. Meanwhile, at several places, the cricket lovers indulged in betting on the overall match and individual batsman scores.    

Though the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) has reduced the higher denomination ticket prices for the match to attract the crowd, big number of tickets of the higher denomination were unsold. 

As there will be no chance again to witness Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s play in the city, his fans in a big number rushed to the stadium to witness his play. Dhoni in this stadium during 2004 scored 148 runs against Pakistan with flash shots. However, Dhoni this time disappointed his fans and returned with less score.  

With the traffic diversions on the both ends towards Madhurawada and towards Hanumanthawaka junction, the people had suffered to reach their destinations.