Reports: 20,000 tickets go unsold at Lord's ahead of first England-New Zealand Test

Ahead of England’s home series against New Zealand, the tickets for the first Test match at Lord’s remain unsold regardless of the fact that Ben Stokes starts his new chapter in his career as the captain of the red-ball format. Even Brendon McCullum gears up for his first stint as the coach of the English team against his national side.

Though the match has been dubbed as “Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Test”, the stands are likely to remain empty. England’s recent form in the Test format has been very poor, and the team is placed in the bottom-most position of the World Test Championship rankings. Lately, ECB witnessed numerous changes in the form of Rob Key’s appointment, Stokes’ captaincy, and McCullum’s appointment.

As per a report by The Daily Graph, 20,000 seats have gone unsold ahead of the home team’s clash against the Kane Williamson-led side. According to the report, Barmy Army has mentioned high ticket prices as the cause for poor ticket sales. It is said that amidst the cost-of-living crisis, the tickets have been priced at 160 points which has thereby resulted in slow sales.

“As of Monday evening, Lord’s was still advertising 1800 tickets as available on day one, 2500 on day two, 4600 on day three, and 9600 on day four. Usually, a Lord’s Test to open the English summer is the hottest ticket in town,” the report said.

High ticket prices major reason behind the poor sales

While the reigning champions New Zealand will try their best to keep up with their title, the hosts will try to improve their game under the new captain and the new coach in order to get some important points so as to move upwards in the WTC Points Table.

“It has to be price. We do not get tickets at Lord’s as a group, but speaking to a lot of people who go every year they have been put off due to price and the cost-of-living crisis,” said Chris Millard, managing director of the Barmy Army fan group.

On the other hand, co-founder of Barmy Army Paul Burnham felt that the lackluster sales have been due to “the recession, Queen’s celebration, poor red-ball form and entertainment level very slow-poor and no Barmy trumpeter allowed”.