The prospect of James Anderson running into Virat Kohli even as the latter tries to overcome the demons of 2014 or an exciting Indian pace battery locking horns with Joe Root and Co. is not luring enough. At least, that’s what the ticket sales for the first two days of the opening India-England Test suggest.
Some 10,000 empty seats are set to take the sheen off England’s 1000th Test match that too against the no. 1 Test side – India as lack of demands for tickets have rendered the organisers in a spot of bother.
About 15,000 people are expected to attend the spectacle on the first day, which includes 1000 complimentary tickets. On Day two, the number will dip to 13,000.
The cramped schedule of India series' is being blamed by the county chief executives for inactive ticket sales and the inability to attract spectators.
It’s not only Birmingham, the trend is pretty much the same in the following Test matches too.
The first match starts on a Wednesday while the third at Trent Bridge begins on a Saturday and the fifth at the Oval on a Friday. Counties prefer the regular Thursday start.
Neil Snowball, the chief executive, was quoted as saying in the 'Daily Telegraph', "We have been impacted by the Wednesday start and this series will throw up the whole debate about the regularity of scheduling.
"Overall we will do around 70,000 tickets altogether. It is just days one and two that sales are not what we would normally expect."
The much-awaited England-India series, with so many empty seats, may not only diminish spirits but also will strengthen the resolve at the England Cricket Board to look for new avenues to engage with a new audience.