Home medals to fill seats

Contradicting claims that 600,000 of the 1.5 million tickets available had been snapped up, most of the venues have looked fairly deserted on the first two days of competitions.

Even local sports stars like Olympic champion shooter Abhinav Bindra and tennis player Sania Mirza have performed in front of rows of empty seats.

Games organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who differed with a journalist on the number of spectators at Tuesday's shooting events, said sales would pick up after India's surge in the medals table.

"Boxing and wrestling stadiums were packed and interest is growing after India won (five) gold medals yesterday," Kalmadi said.

"We sold 50,000 tickets yesterday and have got good response for hockey, tennis, swimming and athletics."

Sitting next to him, Commonwealth Games Federation president Michael Fennell, however, could not hide his disappointment at the poor turnout.

"We have discussed it in the meeting and we ourselves have seen it," he said. "The Organising Committee is taking important steps to see how that can be improved."