AHMEDABAD: There will be two World Cups being held simultaneously in India.
The first one on days when Indian team plays and it will be even difficult to get hold of a ticket. Virat Kohli made it clear in his Instagram post that no one should ask him for tickets. The stands will be jam-packed and you will feel ODI cricket is alive and kicking.
The other one is more stark in contrast like the opening game between current champions England and runners-up New Zealand at the Narendra Modi Stadium, which saw the presence of barely 10,000 people at the start. By the time, the sun stopped beating down hard, it increased to around 15 to 17,000.
And then, the number of spectators increased to about 47,000, which is apparently the biggest turnout for an opening World Cup match. The capacity at this stadium is a world record 1.32 lakh, which is a far cry from most venues in England and New Zealand that can accommodate 30,000 to 35,000 people at the most.
The two teams, which played the greatest World Cup match during that epic final at the Lord’s in 2019, perhaps wouldn’t have visualised empty stands staring at them.
An official from the Gujarat Cricket Association had told PTI in days leading up to the tournament–opener that they expect about 50,000-60,000 fans — from the city and nearby areas in the state to watch the non-India matches — but it remains to be seen if the viewers were at all excited by the prospect of watching last edition’s finalists.
There were also reports of 30,000-40,000 women from the city being given free tickets to watch the game but that did not seem to be the case for the large part of the first innings of the game as empty stands told the story.
However, the scene would be entirely different a week from now when the biggest game of the group stage takes place here between arch-rivals India and Pakistan on October 14.
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