Overseas fans protest over World T20 2016 ticket sales

The ticket sales policy of the BCCI has frowned upon by overseas fans who are currently planning a trip to the subcontinent for the World T20 2016. It has been reported by Cricinfo that the overseas fans are disappointed by the ambiguity of surrounding the ticket process and have expressed their disappointment regarding the late announcement of the schedule.

The fixtures were announced on the 11th of December 2015 and the first phase of ticket sales for the venues Bengaluru, Chennai, Dharamsala, Kolkata and Mohali, began only on February 24. The second phase of ticket sales, for matches in Mumbai, Delhi and Nagpur, had begun at 12 pm IST on February 26, less than two weeks before the tournament.  Seven of those matches have been classified as high priority matches that include the 4 India matches, the semifinals and the final. These tickets have been sold via a lottery system online.

Paul Smith, a 58-year-old fan from Weymouth wrote his displeasure to Cricinfo via mail. “The fixtures were announced on December 11 but there was no lead in. We didn’t know when the fixtures would be announced so right back in September we were checking daily. [For] six months we have had to check if there have been updates or changes, our plans all in limbo.”

“Now we know that tickets are going to be in high demand for the big seven [games], but because we didn’t know what the system was going to be some have booked [flight tickets] to go to semi[finals] and final.

“Obviously we have to get some kind of assurances that we can get to see the games after spending two-three thousand pounds on flights and hotels. But no one can understand why Delhi was chosen when issues [in DDCA] go back months, even years. To put such a large travelling country such as England there [England play two games], and even worse a semi-final was hard to comprehend.”

Chirag Thakkar, a London-based fan said that the lottery process was too tedious and disorganized. Why there is no transparency in terms of the number of tickets available for each match under this draw?” he asked. “You can always release tickets in phases: if 5000 tickets are available for a match then release 2000 in phase one of sale, then another 2000 and 1000 in last phase. If this practice was started in November 2015 with the last phase in January 16 then overseas fans and Indian public both would have got a fair chance to buy.

“While BCCI and ICC have policies and code of conduct, isn’t there a policy of ticket timelines for any international event. I have never seen such delays, lack of transparency [and] huge chunk of tickets reserved for sponsors.”

An unidentified official from the ICC who spoke to Cricinfo, cleared the air with regards to the lottery system. “The lottery system is open for both Indian and overseas fans,” the official told ESPNcricinfo on Thursday. “The confusion was in the initial one hour. When it was corrected we put out in the [FAQ] PDF also. There was a small mistake in the document ICC put up but that has been corrected and put up. So there is access for everyone, and if the foreign fans have registered they also stand to win the random lottery.”