Where are the tickets?

Rohit Mahajan

Kolkata, November 3

The tickets for India’s matches were snapped up in a flash, soon after they were made available for online sale. Yet, there were several holes among spectators in the stands at the Wankhede Stadium yesterday, making people wonder who held tickets for those vacant seats.

We met two Sri Lankan fans, Dhara and Chamath, who had been following their team through its misfortunes in India. They wanted to watch their team’s game against India in Mumbai, but it’s impossible to get tickets for matches involving India. The prices of the tickets were forbidding that — in the black market, tickets for two would have set them back by Rs 40,000, they said. With the team doing badly, too, they decided they’ve had enough of cricket.

A cricket-crazy Indian fan from the US, Amit Baid, who had had a great time following the Indian team at the World Cup in England in 2019, was frustrated at the futility of it all — he struggled to buy tickets online. He and other ticket-seekers were mystified by the sight of the empty seats when India played Australia in Chennai last month, or when England took on New Zealand in Ahmedabad.

And now comes a police complaint — in Kolkata, where else! Though the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) has nothing to do with ticket sales, its officials have been summoned by the police.

This follows a complaint, which some ‘cricket lovers’ had lodged, against alleged black-marketing of tickets for the India-South Africa game. The police had asked officials of CAB and the ticket-booking website to appear before them on Thursday, but no one showed up, according to a police official.