Empty stadiums at ICC World Cup 2023 take the sheen off cricket fervour

The world’s best teams and players are here, but the cricket crazy fans are missing – at least from the stadiums that are hosting the matches. The first week of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 is over and it has seen some interesting twists and turns. India is hosting the World Cup tournament after a period of 10 years. So far, India has played two matches – against Australia and Afghanistan – and has won both of them.

However, what has caught everyone’s attention and is being discussed at all forums is the empty stadiums on match days. The opening match between England and New Zealand, played at the new Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on October 5, 2023, started off with just a few smattering of people in a stadium that has a seating capacity of 132,000. By the second half of the match the crowds did trickle in, but as per various media reports, only an estimated 40,000-odd people were present at the stadium, which is less than 50% of the stadium’s capacity.

The same situation has been seen at all the matches played so far. Mostly the first half is played to a sparsely attended stadium. However, the second half of the matches see relatively higher attendance. While many have attributed this to the heat and office and school/college attendance, several netizens took to social media to vent their ire on the mismanagement of ticket sales, pulling up both BCCI and BookMyShow.

Several netizens alleged that the window of ticket sales was very short and not announced in advance. They also berated the increase in ticket prices. It was also pointed out that they were faced with the ‘Sold Out’ message when they tried to book tickets. But on match day, almost 50% of the stadium was found to be empty. An X user, Priyanka M Kaushik, stated on the platform, “Seriously... I am trying to book England Vs Afghanistan in Delhi... The tickets shown are available, but when I try to book it, it shows may be sold out! Something is really fishy! Either it’s booked by corporate or cricket associations! Half the stadium isn’t even up for sale.”

“Fiasco by @bookmyshow like tweeted when bookings were opened itself,” wrote another X user called Safir. He added, “Flagged @ICC too as in my watch of many World Cup matches around the world, the ticket handling has never been more poor.”

Even the India-Australia match, which was played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, saw several empty seats, this despite the match being played on a Sunday.

Now, all eyes are on the much anticipated match between traditional rivals India and Pakistan, which will be played this Saturday (October 14, 2023) at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. Given the huge craze for this match, BCCI launched 14,000 tickets on October 7. When checked at BookMyShow, the ticket status for this match shows ‘Sold Out’.

October 14 will reveal whether the India-Pakistan match will see a full stadium or there’ll be empty seats there as well.

There are some who feel that the appeal of One Day International matches is wearing off, especially after the huge success of the T-20 format and the entire Indian Premier League entertainment hungama. They point out how the five-day Test matches had lost out to the ODI 50-over format in the past.

Another point worth pondering over is – are the cricket fans switching to watching the matches on the digital screen or even the television screen more? Are they no longer ready to invest in spending huge money to buy tickets and travel all the way to the stadium only to have to fight for a parking space and then jostle with the crowd and tight security checks to finally get a piece of the cricket action.

From a passionate national obsession, will we see cricket transition into a mere spectator sport? God forbid.