The tickets for the ICC World Twenty20 2014 will go on sale from November 17. The excitement and hype among the cricket lovers is no less than the past, despite hosts Bangladesh having to qualify for the main event.
To avoid chaos and mismanagement during the ticket selling process, NCC Bank, the official ticket sellers in Bangladesh, inked a MoU with Book My Show, the ticketing rights holder of the event. Fans will be able to get hold of the golden ticket from Book My Show’s website as they will sell 30 percent of the tickets.
Moniruzzaman, head of public relation, of NCC Bank informed Dhaka Tribune yesterday that the tickets will be sold on a first come first serve basis. To cut down the unnecessary gathering in front of the bank, tokens sealed by the bank will be provided.
“Suppose a bank is selling 200 tickets per day, that particular bank will ask the first 200 person to wait and the rest to leave and try luck the next day,” said Moniruzzaman.
Tickets price hardly has any affect on the cricket crazy fans in Bangladesh. A ticket being sold in the black market at high price is a common practice nowadays and over the time the fans have adapted to the situation. Concerned parties at times have taken measures to prevent the tickets from getting black marketed, but the efficiency has always been questioned.
The price of the tickets for the group stage ranges from Tk50 to Tk2,000. The general public welcomed both ICC and Bangladesh Cricket Board’s initiative of labeling the tickets at a low price, but some worries still remain.
Total of 44 branches of the NCC Bank are allowed to sell the tickets while 48 branches of Agrani Bank will sell tickets in the areas where branches of NCC bank is absent. NCC bank have so far finalised 21 branches with 11 of them situated in and adjacent to the Dhaka City, eight branches in Chittagong and two in Sylhet.
A total of 60 matches - 35 men’s and 25 women’s - will be played in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet in the 22-day tournament, but tickets will be needed only for the men’s event. In a bid to gather crowd for the women’s matches no tickets are required for the games.
Of the two competitions Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur will host 17 matches, 15 will be held at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong. Sylhet Divisional Stadium, besides the 22 women’s matches, will host six games from the men’s event.
Entry to the women’s semi-finals and final, which will be played before the men’s corresponding matches in Dhaka, will be on the same match ticket as the men’s.