Men's ODI World Cup: Cricket fans face hassles in search of tickets for non-India matches
Add to their woes, BookMyShow, the official ticketing platform for the 2023 Men's ODI World Cup, had crashed initially when the tickets were put up for sale at 8 pm after the previous timing of 6 pm.
Sanika Sawant, a Mumbai-based cricket fan, was trying to buy tickets for the England-South Africa match on October 21 in Wankhede Stadium, but didn't succeed.
«I logged in around 7:45 pm as the sale of tickets was to start from 8 pm. But till 8:30 pm, it was showing „coming soon“.
After that, the sale started and I was able to get in. But they only showed tickets for the Sunil Gavaskar stand and when I tried to book, there were no seats available.
I refreshed the page and it showed 'sold out',» she told IANS.
Sanika added many members she knew from the North Stand Gang, a group of cricket fans in Mumbai and regular attendees of matches at Wankhede Stadium, faced the same issue as her. She feels a lack of clarity in the number of tickets on sale as well as of which stands were being made available was the reason.
«I believe from the whole gang, only four or five people got the tickets for that game.
There were many interested in watching this game and were keen to book tickets. Many people whom I spoke to said tickets weren't open for the North Stand, only Sunil Gavaskar and Divecha stands were open that time.»
«I think I will be seeing this World Cup matches from home — firstly due to the uncertainty over booking tickets and secondly, prices are very high.
INR 1,000-2,000 tickets are for the Sunil Gavaskar stand, which is a side view stand. I mostly prefer to have a straight view, like from North stand or Sachin Tendulkar stand,» she added.
Vipul Yadav, a widely travelled sports fan, was trying to book tickets for three
