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The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has decided to sell tickets for
Sachin Tendulkar's farewell Test online and not at ticket counters at
the venue, which has left a lot of fans disappointed. To compound
problems, the highly sought-after tickets were available only on Monday,
three days before the start of the match, making it difficult for fans
from outside Mumbai to make plans for the Test.
On Sunday, a MCA press release stated that 3500 tickets would be
distributed to the public through the website kyazoonga.com from 11 am
on Monday. However, the website crashed as soon as it opened, again
raising questions over why the MCA didn't sell at least some of the
tickets offline.
The MCA's logic was that there would have been chaos had they sold
tickets at the venue, due to the heavy demand. "Who says tickets were
not put on sale?" Ravi Savant, a MCA vice-president told ESPNcricinfo.
"We have certain channels through which tickets find their way to the
members of public. There is a commitment that we give tickets first to
our clubs, then the gymkhanas and then the Garware Club House. These
clubs then in turn sell it to their members, who are members of the
public.
"Instead of opening five windows outside the ground, these are our windows."
When asked about fans without an internet connection having no
opportunity of getting tickets, Savant said he could understand their
issue but MCA could not satisfy every fan's demand. "If the capacity is
30,000 and the demand is 30 lakhs I cannot give tickets to everyone.
Also if I say I am releasing 5000 tickets to the public through our
ticket windows and there are 50,000 people who turn out and there is
chaos, what I should do? And even if I had put 30,000 tickets, there
would always be a heavy demand."
Window sales have always been a contentious issue for international
matches at Wankhede, which has a capacity of 32,000. The MCA, as per
their agreements with the Garware Club House and Tatas, have to hand
over almost 13,000 tickets to the two organisations. Besides, thweey also
have to cater to other BCCI units, BCCI sponsors, their own sponsors and
the state government, which has leased the land of the stadium to MCA.
Add to that 25 tickets being distributed to each of MCA's 329 affiliated
clubs at subsidised rate and 500 tickets to be handed over to Tendulkar
for his farewell Test, and the MCA could only manage to sell 5000
tickets directly to paying public.
Of these 5000 tickets, 1500 were being sold as hospitality tickets on
the upper tier of the Sachin Tendulkar Stand considering the high
demand from overseas fans. Priced at Rs 10,000 per ticket, these tickets
are being sold on a first-come-first-served basis based on applications
MCA has been receiving. The remaining 3500 tickets are supposed to be
sold via kyazoonga.
According to Savant, kyazoonga officials had assured MCA the glitch with
the website would be resolved soon and that online sales would re-start
quickly. Only tickets priced at Rs 500, 1000 and 2500 were being sold
via the internet. "We had given the contract to sell online tickets to
an agency but due to some problems with the website the sale had to be
stalled," Savant said. "The problem is being repaired and we have been
assured it will restart soon."
Nagraj Gollapudi is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo; Amol Karhadkar is a correspondent at ESPNcricinfo
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© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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