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Delhi on a sticky wicket

AFP, New Delhi
Cricket officials in the Indian capital are hoping Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf will bail them out after municipal authorities refused permission to stage a high-profile match at a stadium still under construction.
Musharraf, on an invitation from the Indian government, is due to attend the sixth and final one-day international between India and Pakistan on April 17 at the partially completed Ferozeshah Kotla stadium.
The historic Kotla, one of the oldest Test venues in India, was razed to the ground two years ago to build a state-of-the-art 50,000-capacity stadium, but delays in construction and laying a new pitch have frustrated local officials.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) selected the Kotla as a provisional venue for next month's
one-dayer as the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) worked overtime to finish the stadium in time.
The DDCA reduced the capacity to 30,000 for the match, saying spectators will be allowed to occupy only the lower half of the two-tiered galleries, but municipal authorities refused to budge.
"Public safety has to be the top priority," Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) chairmam Rakesh Mehta said Wednesday.
"No temporary occupancy certificate to hold the match can be issued under our laws."
Without the certificate, the DDCA will not get police and fire safety clearance, a pre-requisite for hosting the match.
But DDCA officials were confident the one-dayer will go ahead as scheduled.
"There are ways to get municipal clearance," a DDCA official said without elaborating.
"After all, we have been given charge of hosting the Pakistan
President and we plan to do a very good job of it."
Even if they do, the BCCI pitch inspectors have not yet declared the newly-laid turf good enough for international cricket.
When the fresh wicket was tested in early-March during a friendly match between lawyers, the bounce was so low that organisers hurriedly laid out matting so that the game could be played.
The pitch inspectors, who carried out a third inspection on Monday, said they were impressed by the speed at which work was going on but stopped short of clearing the pitch for the match.
"We hope to take a decision by next week," chief pitch inspector Venkat Sunderam said.
India invited Musharraf for one of the matches on Pakistan's first full tour of India in six years after he himself publicly announced his desire to watch cricket in India.