After declaring that tickets for Saturday's India vs England T20 tie will be only sold online, organisers now opt for counter sales
The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) had decided not to sell any tickets of tomorrow’s second T20 International between India and England at Wankhede Stadium through the box office.
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“The sale of all tickets for the 2nd Twenty20 match between India and England to be played on Saturday, 22nd December 2012 will be made online at https://in.bookmyshow.com/cricket/india-vs-england-t20-2012/.u00a0
Please note that there will be no counter sale of tickets at the box office,” the MCA said in a media release on December 19.
However, at 10:09 pm yesterday, the MCA sent another media release which said: “Tickets for the 2nd T20 match between India v England to be played on 22nd December 2012 will be available at the Counter at Mumbai Hockey Association on 21st December 2012 from 03.00 pm onwards.”
MCA’s joint secretary Dr PV Shetty said the reason for the change in decision was that online sales were not encouraging yesterday. He added that the president of the MCA (Ravi Savant) then decided to have across-the-counter sales at the hockey stadium. The association’s earlier decision to sell all the tickets online left several cricket fans fuming. Said Harshit Bhatt, a keen Indian team follower: “This is a very strange decision.
“Not everyone is well-versed with the internet process. They should have allocated some tickets for counter sales.”
The MCA had not sold tickets at the counter for the 2011 World Cup final due to fan-related trouble near the counters.
Earlier in the day on Thursday, Dr PV Shetty had justified the decision to go online saying, “we have been witnessing exceptional demand for online tickets. Also, we did not have enough tickets left with us to sell at our box office. Why give fans unnecessary trouble of queuing up when we don’t have enough tickets?
“That is why we decided not to have any counter sales. There is a lot of inconvenience caused to the residents here as the crowds get noisy and out of control at times. So, keeping all these factors in mind, we decided to sell tickets online,” he added.
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