Sri Lanka Cricket is apologizing Monday after crowds in the town of Dambulla swelled to over two-and-a-half times capacity to watch Australia play the host nation in a one-day international game.
45,000 Sri Lankan cricket fans crammed into a 17,000-seat stadium and the photos are wild
via Getty Images
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Fans were forced into trees, sitting on fences and finding whatever spot they could to see the action after 45,000 tickets were sold to the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium, which has a capacity of 16,800.
via Getty Images
Thankfully things managed to be relatively peaceful despite the crowd swelling to well over capacity. The worst reports from Dambulla are from paying fans, who were completely unable to get to their seats due to the crowds and forced to watch from wherever possible with the throngs. Sri Lanka Cricket issued the following statement.
“Sri Lanka Cricket sincerely wishes to announce that it regrets the inconvenience caused to the ticket holders and cricket fans who could not get to their allocated seats at yesterday’s third ODI match played in Dambulla. Having the capacity of accommodating 18,000 spectators, over 45,000 cricket fans attended the match as per the SLC security estimates. Therefore the security staff and the ushering teams lost the crowd control systems which was in place to assist the spectators as usual.”
Sri Lanka went on to lose the match, but fans were ecstatic to see their side in good form.
Hopefully this serves as a warning to Sri Lanka Cricket to put better safeguards in place. This was the best possible outcome from having a stadium at 2.5 times capacity. Next time things might not be so lucky.
