5TH ODI AT DHARAMSALA: All hotels get jam packed

Dharamsala, January 25, 2013: It is a festival like atmosphere in Dharamsala, the lovely hill town in the lap of foothills of Himalayas due to the first Cricket ODI in the town.

Both India and England teams are already in the town and are expected to practice in HPCA Stadium on Friday and Saturday before the Sunday’s match, the 5th ODI of the current season.

The cricket lovers from England have also started arriving through charted flights and luxury road vehicles.

BCCI officials too started gathering here in wake of the closing ceremony of the series.

All 67 MLAs of Himachal Pradesh are coming to witness the first ever international cricket of the state, the CM of Himachal Vir Bhadra Singh shall be the chief guest alongwith the spiritual Tibetan leader Dalai Lama.

It is the weekend and because of the two holidays lots of tourists are also coming to this sunny hill station from adjoining states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

This huge gathering has created the shortage of accommodation in the town.

The host of the show, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket association (HPCA ) too admits that  the spectators might face problems in getting suitable accommodation.

The town has 56 registered hotels and guest houses with a bed capacity of 1,100.

Similarly, McLeodganj, eight km from Dharamsala, has around 91 registered hotels which can accommodate 2,000 people.

In addition to this, a dozen government rest houses are also there, but all are jam packed.

Sanjeev Gandhi, owner of a hotel in Mecleodganj said, “The total rooms of our hotel were booked a year back for this event.”

Kanti Lal who runs a home stay business said,” We have guests from Mumbai to watch the match, sorry no space for others.”

Beside accommodation, the local administration is worried about the parking for the vehicles of those match seekers, who will come to Dharamsala , the same day for the show.

There is no problem of stay for the players and officials of this match

"For the players, the Pavilion residential complex is almost ready. It has 32 huts made of imported wood and 38 concrete rooms. A world-class multi-gym is the new addition," said Anurag Thakur, president, HPCA and Joint secretary BCCI.
The Pavilion, overlooking the stadium, is some 3-km from the stadium.

The stadium, 250 km from state capital Shimla and Chandigarh, has a 21,500-seating capacity, with the additional features of  a world-class indoor stadium comprising video analysis facilities for both bowlers and players, 14 practice pitches outside the ground, a club lounge, restaurant, bar and banquet hall.