Fan interrupted

As the reporters were collecting their match-day tickets for yesterday's double-header at the Kunal Hotel, which is also the home of most of the travelling Bangladeshi journalists, a gentleman in his 30s was seen standing outside the old-fashioned Indian government property.

Sajjadul Karim, an employee of NRB Bank, has actually come all the way from Dhaka to Dharamsala to cheer his beloved cricket team from the stands. He took a week's leave from his employer and had planned to watch the Tigers' final two qualifying games. But his all-out effort and the amount of money he spent were mostly in vain as heavy rain allowed only eight overs of play yesterday. And with the forecast of more rain in the next couple of days, Sajjadul's Dharamsala venture is all set to be a nightmare unless he plans to compensate for the loss of cricket with some sightseeing.

He has also planned to watch the March 16 Super Eight game between Pakistan and the winners of Group A, which at the moment looks like Bangladesh, at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. All he can hope for now is that Bangladesh qualify and travel to Kolkata. Rain in Dharamsala at this time of the season is not a common phenomenon. According to a local journalist it is a delayed spell of rain, which was supposed to take place in January and February.

THE INDO-PAK DISAPPOINTMENT

The moment the International Cricket Council (ICC) decided to shift the India-Pakistan ICC World T20 match from Dharamsala to Kolkata after a lot frantic activity, it was greeted with a sigh of relief from an army of security personnel assembled from the three states of this region -- Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.

But people here in the upper reaches of the Kangra valley, for most of whom it would have been a financial bonanza, appeared devastated. While cricket fans considered it a missed opportunity to watch a game of this magnitude, hotel owners and taxi drivers -- who live on revenue from tourists -- rued the lost chance of a financial windfall.

A hotel manager in Sidwari was so devastated with the cancellation of the game that he feared he might lose his job. Taxi driver Rakesh was grumbling while driving this reporter to the stadium.

“We were expecting to earn some more money because of the game. Now that the game is cancelled, we will have to wait till April before the regular tourists start arriving. It's because of the politicians that the game is cancelled. They should keep politics out of cricket,” said a distraught Rakesh.

Meanwhile, the latest development regarding Pakistan's participation in the ICC World T20 is that they will arrive in Kolkata today, where they are also likely to play a practice game before their opening fixture at the Eden Gardens on March 16.