PCB fails to attract fans as few enclosures remain vacant

It looks like cricket fans in Karachi haven’t responded well to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chief Najam Sethi’s call to purchase tickets for West Indies tour of Pakistan, despite the prices were reduced to half as compared to Pakistan Super League (PSL) final.

Finally international cricket is back in country’s economical hub Karachi, with West Indies touring Pakistan for the first time after 2006.

We got to see the hunger for cricket during the recently concluded PSL season three, however, this time fans have not responded as expected.

Despite tickets prices were slashed to half as compared to PSL final to engage more crowd, the management still failed to make first match of the series houseful, as two of the VIP enclosures, namely Iqbal Qasim and Naseem UL Ghani, were almost vacant during the game.

PCB chief Sethi made numerous announcements regarding the availability of VIP tickets, but the fans haven’t responded to it. He took on the social site twitter ahead of the much awaited series and wrote, “Come on Karachiites some tickets of VIP Rs500 still available for sale for all three matches! We want a full house every day to show the world we are deadly serious about cricket coming home!”

A few reports suggest that as many as 5,000 tickets were returned to the board for the first game as they remained unsold.

It is believed that hot weather may have resulted to the empty stands or extreme security scanning within and outside the stadium may have kept the crowd away from the stadium. Whatever the reason being, this is one of the major concerns for PCB.

Bringing West Indies to Pakistan and that too in Karachi is a big achievement for PCB, however, at the same time lack of interest or any other issue for not having a houseful is concerning.

With two matches remaining in the series, we are hopeful to see a full crowd in next matches.