Ticket sales on FB & unauthorised sites for Eden match, despite earlier police actions
Despite the ticketing fiasco that accompanied the India versus South Africa match at the Eden Gardens last Sunday (November 5), tickets are still being advertised on Facebook by members of the public for the England versus Pakistan match tomorrow.
And this, despite the fact that the match is of little consequence in terms of qualifying for the semi-finals—England is already out, having won just two matches so far and Pakistan is virtually out, as it needs to beat England by either 287-plus runs or by chasing its target in 2.3 overs, both of which are highly unlikely.
Of course, this craze for tickets attests to the popularity of cricket in the country, but it also leads to the question of why this is happening despite the police actions (though late) during the earlier match.
An advertisement on a Facebook group, put up yesterday, titled ‘ICC cricket world cup 2023 tickets’ says that tickets for “B, D, C, K block lower block”, “G1, D1, F1 Upper block available” and “ClubHouse Upper Tier and Lower Tier” for the “Eng vs Pak” match were available.
Another advertisement on a page titled ‘ICC cricket world cup 2023 India Ticket Resale Hub’ says that “two tickets for the semifinal clash in Kolkata” were available, with a “photograph” of the ticket, worth Rs 900. The comments on this post included questions about how the seller laid his hands on the physical tickets.
Two websites, viagogo.com and eticketing.co, that were reported to be selling tickets for the India versus South Africa match at exorbitant prices—the only website authorised by the ICC is bookmyshow.com—are doing the same thing, with the latter pricing tickets as high as 40,521 for Category A seats.
As we said earlier, this needs a high-level investigation. But whether that would happen is anybody’s guess.
