KARACHI, Oct 20: The first festival match between Pakistan All Stars XI and International World XI at the National Stadium Karachi was delayed by one hour for a most absurd reason that somewhat frustrated the packed-to-capacity crowd.

As thousands of people filling the stands at NSK waited and waited, the reason given for delay sounded quite absurd when the media was told that since more people were expected to come in, the start of the match had been put forward by an hour.

The sources, however, disclosed that this wasn’t really the case and the match was being delay on the insistence of a private television channel relaying the match live.

“The channel which has the rights for the match is currently relaying the Punjab Festival live from Lahore and have requested the organisers to delay the start of the match till the show gets over,” sources said.

The match, originally scheduled to begin at 7.00pm, finally started at 8.00pm.—Sports Reporter