ISLAMABAD: The tickets for the Pakistan-India encounter of the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup scheduled to be held from October 17 to November 14 have been sold out hours after they went on sale. The highly-anticipated game between the two great rivals would be held at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on October 24. Seats in all sections of the state-of-the-art Dubai cricket stadium, including General, General East, Premium, Pavilion East and Platinum, have become unavailable on the Platinum list website, where tickets for the T20 World Cup were being sold. As soon as the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that the tickets were on sale, thousands of fans flocked to the website to book their seats. Many were placed in an online queue with tens of thousands of users ahead of them. The estimated wait time was more than an hour. Gopal Jasapara, head coach of Dubai’s G Force Cricket Academy, also failed to book tickets for the big clash. “I went to the website immediately after tickets went on sale. I was on the waiting list for a long time and thought I had a chance. But I was wrong,” khaleejtimes.com quoted Jasapara as saying. On Sunday night, Premium and Platinum tickets were available for Dh1,500 and Dh2,600, respectively, for groups of two. But as of Monday morning, both have become unavailable on Platinumlist. Several users took to social media on Monday to ask if people were willing to sell their tickets. Even Jasapara’s WhatsApp has been flooded with messages from people desperate to get their hands on a ticket. “Since I have been involved with local cricket in UAE, a lot of people have sent me messages for India-Pakistan match tickets. But I have no special access. I am just as helpless as them,” Jasapara said. All UAE venues would be operating at approximately 70 per cent of the capacity in the World Cup, the ICC said on Sunday. The 16-team showpiece event in T20 international cricket would get underway when Oman lock horn with Papua New Guinea in Muscat on October 17. Eight teams (Ireland, Namibia, Netherlands and Sri Lanka in Group A and Bangladesh, Oman, Papua New Guinea and Scotland in Group B) would compete in Round 1 to join India, Afghanistan, Australia, England, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the West Indies in the Super 12 stage. While Oman would host six of the 12 Round 1 matches, all Super 12 games as well as the semifinals and the final will be staged in UAE. Dubai would host the final on November 14.
