Hyderabad, Sep 19 : The qualifying round matches of Champions League T20 failed to enthuse the crowds here Monday with poor attendance marking the inaugural match between Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) and Ruhunu at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
Though, the turnout improved for the second match of the day featuring Kolkata Knight Riders and Auckland Aces, it was still not to the standards of T20 version.
According to officials of Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA), the attendance for the second tie was a little over 8,000 in 40,000 capacity stadium.
A sparse crowd of a few hundreds watched the first match. With top names like Jacques Kallis, Brett Lee and Yusuf Pathan in action during the second match, cricket buffs walked in to give some respectability to the turnout.
The turnout was poor despite the minimum pricing for the tickets being Rs.100. These are only qualifying matches and except a few KKR players, others are not big names to draw huge crowds, explained an HCA official.
The poor turnout was also attributed to the strike by employees of the state-owned Road Transport Corporation in support of the demand for separate Telangana state. As RTC buses were off the roads, the most affordable mode of transport was not available for spectators to reach the stadium, located almost on the city outskirts.
With high voltage music and cheer girls, the organisers tried to provide some entertainment to the crowds on what proved to be an otherwise lacklustre day of cricket.
© IANS
