The excitement and the buzz for ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 is slowly building up with ticket sales for the warm-up games and main tournament fixtures across 12 venues in India, going live last week. The ticket sale has been done in a phased manner to avoid large traffic on the BookMyShow app and website, the official ticketing partner. However, the fans' worst fears came true when the early-bird tickets sale for India's matches (warm-up and main round) went live on Wednesday, August 29.
Within minutes of the ticket sale going live at 6 PM IST, the fans started experiencing issues. A few fans couldn't open the BookMyShow app itself, some who did get into the ticketing window had to wait for hours and if they went back or refreshed the page, their wait time would begin from the start while others who weren't able to open the app finally got into it, only to find that the tickets for particular matches are sold out within minutes.
The frustration level of fans knew no bounds as they slammed the BCCI and the ticketing partner BookMyShow in equal measures. One of the fans went to the extent that he would take the ticketing partner to the court by sharing a video of his 5-6 failed attempts of booking tickets, which showed available at the time of booking but it showed error again and again at checkout.
Here are a few reactions:
Only a few lucky ones were able to get the early-bird tickets for the India matches and in particular, the marquee India-Pakistan clash to be played in Ahmedabad on October 14. The ones who didn't get will have another opportunity to book the tickets as remaining ones will be sold in another set of multiple phases.
Here's how the ticket-booking for next phases will be done:
30th August from 8 PM IST onwards: India matches at Guwahati and Trivandrum (vs England on September 30, vs Netherlands on October 3)
31st August from 8 PM IST onwards: India matches at Chennai, Delhi and Pune (vs Australia on October 8, vs Afghanistan on October 11 and vs Bangladesh on October 19)
1st September from 8 PM IST onwards: India matches at Dharamsala, Lucknow and Mumbai (vs New Zealand on October 22, vs England on October 29 and vs Sri Lanka on November 2)
2nd September from 8 PM IST onwards: India matches at Bengaluru and Kolkata (vs Netherlands on October 12 and vs South Africa on November 5)
3rd September from 8 PM IST onwards: India match at Ahmedabad (vs Pakistan)
15th September from 8 PM IST onwards: Semi-Finals and Final
