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Journalism of Courage
A chance to see cricket history is just a mouse-click away. With the Pakistan Cricket Board deciding on online sale of tickets for both Tests and ODIs, all you need to do is log on, flash your credit card and pack your bags.
But hurry, because the tickets are going faster than a Shoaib snorter, mostly to NRIs in the US. Payment is in pounds, the rates ranging from 8-14 pounds for an ODI and 15-20 pounds for the Tests.
The PCB has created a special microsite (pcbtickets.cricket.org), or you can go to Cricinfo. Once you’ve bought the ticket, the printout of the receipt is what you’ll need to produce at the match venue for the actual ticket.
PCB officials say approximately 30-35% tickets at each of the five staging centres have been put up for sale online, an average of around 6-9,000 per stadium, and most will probably be picked up by Indians/ foreigners.
The online tickets have another advantage — you can choose where you want to sit. Seats for ‘outsiders’ have been marked in specific, adjacent enclosures — Karachi’s National Stadium has the Wasim Akram and Javed Miandad Enclosures.
At this stadium, the stands to be occupied by foreigners will see 11,000 chairs being put up.
PTI adds: ‘‘This is a historic occasion for Pakistan. The ticket sale was put through internet for the first time and the response has been overwhelming’’, Sohail Ahmed of Cricinfo said today.
‘‘Codes will be given on purchase through credit cards and a person will have to prove his identity while entering the ground and show his reservation slip to get the ticket’’, said Ahmed. ‘‘No two tickets can be the same and we will pass the order number to the buyer and another code in the next 48 hours to ensure accuracy’’, he said.
TICKET TO HISTORY
• Sites to look at: http://www.cricinfo.com, pcbtickets.cricket.org, pcb.cricket.org
• The only way of reserving tickets in advance is by buying online at Cricshop using a valid credit or debit card. You may not reserve tickets by telephone
• For orders in excess of 10 tickets for a single match per credit card or customer, e-mail PCB at pcbtickets@cricket.org
• Purchase of ticket does not automatically mean that a visa will be made available.
