At The front of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, outside Gate 7 on Cubbon Road, hundreds of pairs of sandals lay abandoned in the gutter.
They had been ripped off the feet of their wearers in a stampede of panic when the police moved in, swinging their lathi bamboo canes to disperse the angry crowd.
The tickets had gone, you see. The last 7,000. The last chance to see India's World Cup clash with England on Sunday afternoon. Sold out in two crazy hours yesterday morning.
Several thousand had queued all night. By morning, the unruly line, sometimes six or seven deep, snaked around the corner 300 yards away and off into the distance.
They were desperate for a ticket, desperate to buy a chance to see their great hero, Sachin Tendulkar, and his swashbuckling cohorts, Virender Sehwag and MS Dhoni, put England to the sword.
So when, some time around 11am, they realised their chance had gone, the fans turned ugly, the gridlocked cars, trucks and tuk-tuks on Cubbon Road blared their horns in fury, all hell was let loose and the police waded in, dishing out savage beatings.
"The crowd was so huge that there were not sufficient tickets for all of them, and they were not satisfied," stadium security officer Ratnakar Salunke said. "They started demanding more tickets, and started trying to get in because they thought there were more.
"But there aren't so the police had to disperse the people forcibly. It is normal practice, anywhere in India, when people refuse to disperse. It is like that not only for a cricket match but anything - the cinema, for example."
Asked about reports that three people had been taken to hospital after being beaten by police, Mr Salunke provided an alternative explanation.
"After all the queueing, there was maybe some exhaustion," he said, "and the health of certain persons may not be that good for standing in the sunlight for all that time."
So if England's World Cup got off to a bit of a false start in Nagpur on Tuesday against the minnows of the Netherlands, now Andrew Strauss and his men know they're right in the thick of things.
This is cricket, India-style. This is cricket in a country that cannot get enough of the game. This is cricket in a country where players push Bollywood stars off the front pages of the glossy magazines.
Bollywood producers are even delaying the release of many of their new films until the tournament is over.
They had been ripped off the feet of their wearers in a stampede of panic when the police moved in, swinging their lathi bamboo canes to disperse the angry crowd.
The tickets had gone, you see. The last 7,000. The last chance to see India's World Cup clash with England on Sunday afternoon. Sold out in two crazy hours yesterday morning.
Several thousand had queued all night. By morning, the unruly line, sometimes six or seven deep, snaked around the corner 300 yards away and off into the distance.
They were desperate for a ticket, desperate to buy a chance to see their great hero, Sachin Tendulkar, and his swashbuckling cohorts, Virender Sehwag and MS Dhoni, put England to the sword.
So when, some time around 11am, they realised their chance had gone, the fans turned ugly, the gridlocked cars, trucks and tuk-tuks on Cubbon Road blared their horns in fury, all hell was let loose and the police waded in, dishing out savage beatings.
"The crowd was so huge that there were not sufficient tickets for all of them, and they were not satisfied," stadium security officer Ratnakar Salunke said. "They started demanding more tickets, and started trying to get in because they thought there were more.
"But there aren't so the police had to disperse the people forcibly. It is normal practice, anywhere in India, when people refuse to disperse. It is like that not only for a cricket match but anything - the cinema, for example."
Asked about reports that three people had been taken to hospital after being beaten by police, Mr Salunke provided an alternative explanation.
"After all the queueing, there was maybe some exhaustion," he said, "and the health of certain persons may not be that good for standing in the sunlight for all that time."
So if England's World Cup got off to a bit of a false start in Nagpur on Tuesday against the minnows of the Netherlands, now Andrew Strauss and his men know they're right in the thick of things.
This is cricket, India-style. This is cricket in a country that cannot get enough of the game. This is cricket in a country where players push Bollywood stars off the front pages of the glossy magazines.
Bollywood producers are even delaying the release of many of their new films until the tournament is over.
