LAHORE, Feb 25: Several thousand cricket fans on Friday obtained visa forms from a special counter set up by India, allowing them to watch the first Test match starting at Mohali on March 8.

Long queues were seen outside the make-shift office set up by the Indian High Commission at the Pakistan Cricket Board's (PCB) headquarters at Qadhafi Stadium. "We issued around 5,000 visa forms on the first day. The interest is more than we expected," said an Indian official.

Applicants must submit the forms on Sunday or Monday along with a fee of 2,500 rupees, which includes the price of a single match ticket. India plans to issue a total of 10,000 cricket visas to Pakistani cricket fans holding match tickets.

The Indian government will also set up visa counters in Karachi and the country's capital Islamabad. The visa office in Karachi will start working in the first week of March.

The special visa offices will remain operative throughout the series. The windows opened 40 minutes later than the scheduled time of 10. However, it took just half an hour to hand over forms to the people standing in queues.

A brochure containing instruction about filling in the form in Urdu was also distributed along with the form. Some people filled their forms soon after getting it. Passports will be returned on Monday.

Five women also received form. First visa officer Deepak Kaul expressed the hope that all the applicants would get visas. He told Dawn that 7,500 tickets for Mohali Test had been allotted by the Indian cricket board for Pakistani fans. However, he did not give the number of tickets to be distributed among three cities - Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.

"We will decide when we will receive the tickets most probably in the afternoon," he said. Meanwhile, a PCB official confirmed that the board received tickets on Friday. "We will give the bulk of tickets to Lahore and about 2,000 to Karachi and Islamabad."