{"id":2745,"date":"2023-09-10T22:03:05","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T22:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/sri-lanka-slashes-asia-cup-ticket-prices-by-up-to-95pc-to-fill-empty-stadiums\/"},"modified":"2023-09-10T22:03:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T22:03:05","slug":"sri-lanka-slashes-asia-cup-ticket-prices-by-up-to-95pc-to-fill-empty-stadiums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/sri-lanka-slashes-asia-cup-ticket-prices-by-up-to-95pc-to-fill-empty-stadiums\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka slashes Asia Cup ticket prices by up to 95pc to fill empty stadiums"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sri Lanka Cricket slashed ticket prices for the Asia Cup by up to 95 per cent on Sunday after costs were hiked 40-fold and matches were played in near-empty stadiums.<\/p>\n

Tickets for One-Day Internationals (ODI) in crisis-hit Sri Lanka have generally cost around 250 rupees ($0.78) previously.<\/p>\n

That was hiked to 10,000 rupees for the Asia Cup, which is being organised by the Pakistan Cricket Board despite largely taking place in Sri Lanka<\/a>, and fans in the cricket-mad island country have stayed away in droves.<\/p>\n

Barely 7,000 home supporters turned out for Sri Lanka\u2019s Super Four clash<\/a> against Bangladesh on Saturday at the 35,000-capacity R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, leaving the hosts facing the embarrassing sight of ranks of empty seats.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to lure them, back Sri Lanka Cricket announced a price cut of up to 95pc on Sunday for all remaining Super Four games, including the day\u2019s marquee clash<\/a> between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, with tickets now costing as little as 500 rupees.<\/p>\n

The stratospheric price hikes had infuriated fans.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka endured months of food, fuel and medicine shortages last year after a foreign exchange crunch<\/a>, which sparked widespread protests culminating in the ouster of its president<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 50-over Asia Cup is a precursor to the upcoming ODI World Cup, and most of the matches were moved to Sri Lanka after India refused<\/a> to tour Pakistan due to political tensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan have kept the ticket pricing too high and that has kept fans away from the stadiums,\u201d a local Sri Lankan official told AFP<\/em> on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u201cTicket costs \u2026 are way beyond the reach of a common man,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is bizarre. We tried to reason with the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) but they had their reasons as they have lost out on money, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked for a comment, a PCB official said \u201cprices were not an issue for an India-Pakistan match\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather plays a key role here. There\u2019s a lot of uncertainty due to poor weather and there was prediction of rain as well,\u201d he said while speaking to Dawn.com<\/em> on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u2018Love of cricket\u2019<\/h2>\n

There were still hardly any spectators on Sunday for the India-Pakistan game, for which grandstand tickets were priced at a whopping 64,000 rupees ($200).<\/p>\n

And fans were not amused.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not good. We love cricket but cannot pay so much to watch a match,\u201d Supun Vijayarathnam, a tea seller outside the Colombo stadium, told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have watched many matches here for just 100 and 200 rupees. But this time I have to watch it on TV and just hear the noise, which of course is less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans travelled from both India and Pakistan for the hotly anticipated clash after their first meeting was washed out in Pallekele.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe paid 16,000 Sri Lankan rupees for this game. We were there in Kandy as well and had to pay 15,000 there,\u201d Arun Kumar Yadav, from the northern Indian city of Lucknow, told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prices are too high from the last time that we came here,\u201d added the 35-year-old. \u201cBut it\u2019s the love of cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n

A street vendor selling India and Pakistan jerseys and flags said that despite the game being a blockbuster, there were \u201cfewer fans and the buzz is less\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka Cricket slashed ticket prices for the Asia Cup by up to 95 per cent on Sunday after costs were hiked 40-fold and matches were played in near-empty stadiums. Tickets for One-Day Internationals (ODI) in crisis-hit Sri Lanka have generally cost around 250 rupees ($0.78) previously. That was hiked to 10,000 rupees for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/09\/10173510f616572.jpg?r=173550","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}