World Cup 2023: Reason behind BCCI and ICC choosing staggered ticket sales revealed

The hosts, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and the governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), have decided to release tickets in various phases for the much-awaited ODI World Cup that is scheduled to be exclusively held in India for the first time. Therefore, before fans start to mark their calendars for important matches during the showpiece event, they will have to keep an eye on the dates of the ticket sales.

BCCI and ICC have unanimously decided that tickets will be up for grabs in different phases to avoid crashing of the ticket-selling website due to too many people trying to get their match passes at the same time. The two boards were aware of how the website that sold tickets for India’s matches crashed prior to the 2019 ODI World Cup in England and had no intention to see a repeat of the same in the upcoming edition of the marquee event.

“The staggered sale approach is designed to handle the expected surge in demand efficiently. It's the most effective way to manage the system for the benefit of the fans,” an inside source was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.

Tickets for the non-India games will be released earlier than tickets for India games. This will put lesser pressure on the website.

The all-important Ticket-selling order

August 25 will be the first day of ticket sales for the World Cup as all non-India event matches and non-India warm-up match tickets will be available to the fans. August 30 is the date when tickets to India’s warm-up games in Guwahati and Trivandrum will be made available.

Tickets for India’s first three out of four games against Australia (Chennai, October 8), Afghanistan (Delhi, October 11), and Bangladesh (Pune, October 19) will be up for grabs on August 31.

The next three games which will be played in Dharamsala (against New Zealand) on October 22, in Lucknow (against England) on October 29, and in Mumbai (versus Sri Lanka) on November 2 can be bought from September 1 onwards.

Tickets for India versus South Africa match (November 5) in Kolkata and India versus the Netherlands match (November 12) in Bengaluru will be available on September 2.

The high-voltage India versus Pakistan clash will be played at the world’s largest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad on October 14 and the tickets for this match can be accessed on September 3. Tickets for the semifinals and final will be released on September 15, less than three weeks before the opening day of the mega event.