Tickets for the 200th and the final cricket test match of Sachin Tendulkar, to be played at the Wankhede stadium here, have been sold out. The online sale of around 4,000 tickets, made available to cricket fans, was on till late Monday night.
Neetu Bhatia, co-founder and CEO of Kyazoonga, the web portal that sold the tickets, said the website received more than 115 million hits on Monday. “It was overloaded throughout the day,” she told The Hindu. However, Ms. Bhatia denied that the website crashed due to the heavy traffic.
“Had that been the case, we would not have seen a single ticket being sold.” She said the demand and supply ratio in this case was too skewed.
But fans refused to buy the website’s claims. “I was trying to access the website right from the morning till late into the night. Not once did I manage to open it. I am sure there were many others like me,” said Ashay Parekh, a businessman from Kolhapur.
Even those who managed to book had to wait endlessly. “I had lost hope as the website didn’t open in the morning,” said Kuntal Patil. “Finally, at night I managed to book the ticket.” He said a large number of tickets were available till late in the night as very few had managed to open the site.
Unaware of the online sale, a number of fans have reached Mumbai from across the country hoping to buy tickets. “When I reached here on Monday morning, I was told that no tickets would be sold that day. I don’t know how to book tickets online,” said Kripal Chowdhary, who had come from Surat. He would wait till Wednesday.
Krishnachand, who came from New Delhi, said, “They should have given tickets for each day, instead of the season ticket. The VIPs may not spend five days watching this match and people like us will miss the chance to watch Sachin Tendulkar’s last match.”
