NEW DELHI: Tickets for the marquee World Cup clash between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad on Oct 14 were sold out within an hour after the International Cricket Council’s ticketing partner opened its exclusive pre-sale window, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported on Wednesday.

While there will be another round of general sale for the India-Pakistan match on Sept 3, there is a chance that there would be a complete sell-out within hours, like it happened on Tuesday for all the Mastercard holders.

It couldn’t be confirmed as to how many tickets were put online during the pre-sale window for all India matches and the warm-up games but it has been learnt that, after the sales opened at 6:00pm (IST), within an hour, all tickets on the day were exhausted.

The website ‘Book My Show’ — the ICC’s ticketing partner — put a “Sold Out” caption on the Pakistan game, which wasn’t the case for the other eight India games.

“Today it was only for those who owned a Mastercard (credit or debit, India and international),” a Board of Control for Cricket India source privy to the development told PTI on the condition of anonymity. “Only two tickets per person was allotted and naturally, the tickets put on pre-sale were bought by fans within an hour.

“However it is expected that another round will happen on Sept 3. The best part is that the Narendra Modi Stadium has 132,000 capacity, so reasonable number of the tickets could be expected to be put on sale on Sept 3.”

The ICC is allowing only two tickets to be booked per person for all-India games along with the semi-final and the final while for non-India games, four tickets per person could be booked.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2023