There has been confusion over the sale of tickets for India’s matches, leaving a lot of ticket seekers frustrated. The chaos has been attributed to the ICC’s decision to leave it late.
The system followed in ticket distribution is the same as most big global events where one has to register online and tickets are decided by lottery. The complaint of fans is the delay in carrying out the whole process. It has left them no time to plan their schedule. That the India versus Pakistan game was rescheduled at the last minute has added to the chaos, which in some cases has cost people heavily.
Nagpur’s Omprakash Mundra, who has been to eight Olympics and five FIFA World Cups, says he had never experienced such a problem at any event as this time. Mundra is also a regular for India’s matches at cricket World Cups, and likes to follow the team from the opening match to the final. This time, he has a ticket only for the Nagpur game, even though he booked flight tickets for all other games, semifinals and final immediately after the schedule was announced.
“For the 2015 World Cup, I had booked my tickets in February 2014. This time, the date of registration for tickets was only from February 24 and they started distributing tickets to the winners by lottery system only from March. How does one plan the travel and stay in 15 days,” said Mundra.
{{/usCountry}}“For the 2015 World Cup, I had booked my tickets in February 2014. This time, the date of registration for tickets was only from February 24 and they started distributing tickets to the winners by lottery system only from March. How does one plan the travel and stay in 15 days,” said Mundra.
{{/usCountry}}“I am going to the Rio Olympics and my tickets were booked a year in advance. The lottery system is alright but it should be declared in advance so that you are able to plan,” he said.
The worst affected are overseas fans. Vipul Patel from Georgia, near Atlanta, is among a group of Gujarati fans who make it a point to attend India games. This time, till now, he has got tickets only for Nagpur. “I have a ticket for the semifinals of the Euro Championship in France on July 3, but here I didn’t get any ticket despite making 35 applications. I have made my flight bookings for all India games. If I don’t get tickets, I will watch the other games around it,” said Patel.
When contacted, tournament director MV Sridhar said, “I will not say there was delay. The schedule was only confirmed in December after the ICC committee met. Once it began, we had all systems going.”