Eden Gardens is likely to witness a full house for Sachin Tendulkar’s 199th and penultimate Test match, scheduled to start on Wednesday.
As expected, ticket prices for the match between India and the West Indies have skyrocketed in the black market.
The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) had fixed season ticket prices (all five days) at Rs 500, Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500, depending on the stands.
However, fan frenzy has seen prices move up to Rs 5,000 in the black market.
Prices across all the three segments have increased, especially for Days 2 and 3. They are likely to go up further depending on Sachin’s performance.
Club-house tickets — normally given free to Association members — are being sold for over Rs 10,000.
Limited Sale
According to a source in the CAB, around 3,000 tickets were put up for sale by the CAB through its online partner, Ticketgenie.com. Another 1,000 are being sold over the counter. And that’s about all the tickets directly available to the general public at India’s largest stadium by searing capacity.
Although the Eden Gardens stadium has a capacity of nearly 67,000, the source said that approximately 30,000 tickets are reserved for life, associate, annual and honorary members.
Another 24,000 are for the CAB’s 121 affiliates (approximately 200 to each affiliate), including clubs, universities and so on. Around 9,000 are reserved for the BCCI, state associations and former Test players and officials, added the source.
The Ticketgenie.com site maintains that all tickets for the November 6 match have been “sold out”. CAB officials said there was high demand for tickets sold over the counter, too.
It’s a similar story in Mumbai — only about 4,000 tickets have been made available to the general public for the Master Blaster final Test match at the Wankhede Stadium.
Injury and the weather notwithstanding, Tendulkar should play his final Test match in the city, from November 14 to 18.