By Prajwal Bhat

While Sunrisers Hyderabad stunned home-town favorites Royal Challengers of Bangalore (RCB) in the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru, a whole different game was playing out outside the stadium. Several fake tickets were making the rounds near Gate 16 and 17 of the stadium as desperate fans made a late bid to get their hands on match tickets.

Akshat Choubey, an engineer from Bengaluru, fell victim to the ploy as he bought a fake Gate 17 ticket. “I was looking for a match-ticket and I approached a group of guys in the parking lot who sold me the fake ticket for Rs. 2,000.” It appeared to be a colour photocopy of the tickets being sold for the game. There was no visible fold on the fake ticket.

The ticket-checking mechanism however was fool proof. Roopesh, a ticket-checker at the stadium explained, “When you tear the ticket, you should be able to see an orange-tear. This makes it clear that it is an original IPL final ticket. There is also a barcode scanner that scans the ticket.”

Tickets for the final were being sold for Rs. 8,000 and upwards in black outside Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday. Ironically, the comment section in the IPL official website may have been used to communicate and sell tickets in black.

With a low capacity of 40,000 and city-wide support for the franchise, hundreds of fans queued up outside the stadium in the hope of buying a ticket in black. The tickets were available even minutes after the match began with opportunists looking to cash in on the fans’ desperation to watch RCB play a home final.