The atmosphere at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium is charged with excitement as Rohit Sharma-led India have shown an all-out dominance over England in the first match of the five-match India vs England Test series. After posting a score of 246 runs, led by Captain Ben Stokes' resilient 70, England's bowlers encountered difficulties against the Indian batters. India successfully amassed 436 runs in 121 overs. However, the Test match seems to be marred by complaints from the touring England supporters regarding the facilities and arrangements at the Hyderabad stadium. Pictures and videos of the same have gone viral over social media.
During the Test's second day, some England fans took to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the inadequate arrangements for spectators at the venue. One fan by the social media handle name of @StocksC_cricket complained on X (formerly Twitter) about difficulties reaching the venue and the confiscation of water bottles and suntan lotions. Another fan, @benstrat98, took it a step further by uploading a video highlighting the unsatisfactory condition of a restroom at the Hyderabad Stadium. Pertinent to note, ABP Live couldn’t independently verify the originality of the events or complaints.
Watch The Video Here:
As per a The Telegraph report, fans interviewed by Telegraph Sport expressed there was a lack of available water for purchase at the venue. Although there were some water fountains, accessing them proved challenging due to long queues and concerns about the safety of the water.
'There’s Been No Water On Sale'
Chuck Adolphy, a tour manager for the Barmy Army's travel arm (which has approximately 200 clients on tour), mentioned that fans resorted to filling used food containers with water from the fountains to ensure they had access to some water as per The Telegraph’s report.
“You can’t bring anything in other than a phone and a wallet. You are not allowed sun cream, water, or even empty bottles. There are water dispensers in here, which we hope are filtered, with lots of long queues. But if you can’t bring a bottle in it’s difficult to fill up. There’s been no water on sale. The solution today has been fans buying popcorn, eating it, then queuing to fill the paper bucket the popcorn is served in with water, which obviously isn’t the best situation for a couple of reasons. We feel that it’s fair enough not to let people bring stuff in, we were ok with that, but to then have nothing on sale [is not ideal].”
Interestingly, the Hyderabad stadium faced scrutiny during the World Cup 2023 as well, with fans expressing problems about bird litter on the seats.