ICC World Twenty20 tickets in great demand
Governor of Central Province Tikiri Kobbekaduwe, Chief Minister of Central Province Sarath Ekanayake at the box office in Kandy
Thousands of Sri Lanka cricket fans snapped up sought-after tickets for the ICC World Twenty20 2012 when box offices, MoneyGram outlets and online booking sites opened at 9am Colombo time today.
Following a spectacular launch on Saturday attended by tens of thousands of cricket fans, the message to buy early was heeded this morning. The Sri Lanka group games and its potential Super Eight matches proved to be particularly popular and by the end of the day some categories were temporarily unavailable.
Upekha Nell, the ICC World Twenty20 Tournament Director, said:"It has been a busy day at all the official box offices. Despite the system being new to the public it seems that what we are implementing to provide a controlled and measured sales process has been well received.
"Some categories of tickets are now temporarily unavailable as all those available in this first phase have been sold. It is a positive feature of this sales process that further tickets will be made available in all categories in later sales phases."
Ajit Jayasekera, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) CEO, was delighted with the online access to tickets as he went online himself this afternoon and bought a ticket to the final."It was a simple and easy process to complete the application, select my ticket, pay and print my receipt. I hope my friends and fellow Sri Lankans will do the same as me and support the event," he said.
The Sri Lanka public have a special window of four days before tickets go on global sale at 0900 GMT on 30 March 2012 with a second phase of tickets becoming available on 1 August 2012.
Tickets will be available at box offices located in Colombo, Kandy and Hambantota and at selected MoneyGram outlets in Bank of Ceylon branches. It is mandatory for those purchasing tickets to have their NIC or a valid Passport on hand.
Harsh Lambah, Senior Regional Director, South Asia - MoneyGram, said:"As the official money transfer partner of the ICC, we are offering cricket fans in Sri Lanka the opportunity to reserve their place at the ICC World T20 from select BOC locations. We have selected 34 key MoneyGram - Bank Of Ceylon locations from over 1500 MoneyGram agent locations and from the update received we have already seen people queuing outside these select branches and are very happy with the response so far."
A maximum of four tickets can be purchased by each person for the super eights, semi-finals and finals, and a maximum of six tickets per person for the rest of the matches. Online booking of tickets will be available by logging onto
www.icc-cricket.com, and buyers must produce a receipt confirming their purchase to redeem their match ticket at the box office. Ticket collection will take place from 1 August 2012.
Tickets represent excellent value with prices starting at as little as US $0.25 for the single group games and the final itself has tickets ranging from only US $2.50 up to just US $45.
Attendance at the ICC Womens World Twenty20 during the group stages in Galle will be free of charge. The womens semi-finals and final will be played on the same day on the same ground as the mens and will be covered by the same ticket.