World Cup 2019: Ticketless Indian fans pay through their hearts

Indian cricket fans. Pic/AFP

Birmingham: The data available with the ICC over tickets bought by Indian and English fans for today's high-profile World Cup match here at Edgbaston, says around 55 per cent of tickets have been purchased by Indian fans and 42 per cent have gone to England supporters. The rest have been bought by fans of Pakistan and other teams.

But mid-day has learnt that Indian fans are set to dominate the stadium once again. Ticketless Indian fans have lured a lot of England fans to sell their tickets to them and they didn't come cheap.

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With Team India on a roll, the demand has hit the roof, while England are in a precarious position to keep their World Cup hopes alive. On the eve of the India v England match, a World Cup ticket-selling website, showed Platinum tickets being sold for over 500 pounds each. The lowest, Bronze category tickets, were sold at 320 pounds each on the website.

"I purchased a ticket from an English fan after he had posted the availability on his social media account. I contacted him and paid 200 pounds for a 125 pounds ticket," said an Indian fan, Dhruv Patel, who was in the city a couple of days in advance to attend the ICC Fanzone at Victoria Square here. A lot of taxi drivers are also on the lookout for tickets for India's matches against England and Bangladesh here.

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