SYDNEY, Jan 14: Cricket Australia (CA) had to give a stern warning to its own staff after Ashes tickets allocated to an employee were found on sale through eBay.

English fans are particularly keen to secure seats for the five-Test series which begins in Brisbane in November.

Concerns about a black market have prompted CA to plan a crackdown against ticket touts using the internet.

But it had to start by looking in-house after whole sets of tickets were already up for sale through eBay.

A UK-based seller advertised four tickets per day for Brisbane and for the final Test in Sydney, citing “friends in high places” as a source. “My contact works for Cricket Australia,” the seller wrote.

“He will have at least 10 tickets for each full match, of which four I have purchased from him.”

CA lawyers demanded eBay remove the items from the site for contravening the cricket body’s conditions of sale.

CA spokesman Peter Young confirmed that employees received tickets to international matches generally in their home city, although no Ashes tickets had been promised.

“They sit in blocks anyway, so anyone who bought those tickets would have been easy to identify and then asked to leave,” he said.—Agencies