Sri Lanka fans fume after $2.72 semi-final tickets sell out

COLOMBO, (Reuters) – Angry Sri Lankan fans  criticised local organisers after tickets costing just $2.72 for  a World Cup semi-final that could feature Kumar Sangakkara’s men  sold out in just 90 minutes today.
Around 25,000 fans had queued up from the early hours of  Tuesday morning outside the 35,000-capacity R Premadasa Stadium  desperate to get their hands on a SLR 300 ticket for the March  29 semi-final, which will feature the co-hosts provided they  beat England on Saturday.
“We were here since before dawn but now they say no more  tickets are available. We can only get them on the black market  and they cost above 2,500 rupees or 3,000 rupees,” a 16-year old  student, who identified himself only as Insan, told Reuters.
“(Sri Lanka) Cricket Board is responsible for this mess up.  We come to watch a match because we love the game but we were  unable to buy a ticket.”
Demand of tickets for matches featuring the three co-hosts,  India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, have far outstripped supply.
Last month the official online ticket website crashed due to  10 million people chasing just 1,000 tickets for the April 2  final in Mumbai.
While supporters clashed with police in Indian cities when  tickets sold out in various stadium box offices, in Sri Lanka  Reuters witness said there was heavy security presence around  the venue and there were no reports of any violence.
Instead, the complaints were never ending.
“Most of the people who came here were businessmen who want  to resell the tickets. Those were not cricket fans and real  cricket fans could not get the tickets,” a 49-year photographer  named Wickramage said.
Sri Lanka’s World Cup director Suraj Dandeniya said it was  impossible to meet the demands of the cricket-loving public.
“We had to close the ticket counters within 1-1/2 hours as  all the tickets were sold out,” Dandeniya told Reuters.
“We sold only up to 9,500 tickets but there were around  25,000 people queued up for the tickets and, unlike earlier  matches, we restricted one ticket per person.”
The organising committee decided to sell 25,000 tickets to  the public with a maximum price of SLR 7,500 per ticket.
The majority of tickets were priced at 300 rupees.