The match was scheduled to take place in a temporary 34,000-seat stadium, scheduled to be cleared out and depart at 10:30 a.m. after the Cup finals. The venue is a park larger than Central, with two golf courses, an outdoor concert venue named for Harry Chapin, and the New York Islanders’ training facility. The match was scheduled to take place among a dot on the map of enthusiasm surrounded by general American indifference. But with the world’s largest (India) and fifth-largest (Pakistan) populations watching from afar, two Indian men from Ahmedabad, now based in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, predicted a global frenzy.
It said the price was 1,636 Canadian dollars (about 1,187 US dollars) per person.
Don’t forget the service charge.
How about $4,183 CAD for two people?
Parth Shah and Digvijay Vaghela had bought an incredibly good deal on tickets on Facebook Marketplace, but the tickets hadn’t been scanned, so Shah looked into it and gave onlookers a glimpse of what he was scrolling through, right before saying, “This is madness.”
Though ticket prices have come down somewhat from exorbitant prices in recent weeks, he described the moment Sunday morning: “As you get closer to the game, the prices are only going to go up. And you see the number of tickets remains the same,” he said of third-party ticket sellers across the globe. “The problem is, they know that anyone within a two-hour radius will buy it. Now they’re trying to get rid of the big boys.”
He and Vaghela were standing next to a shed with signs reading “Ticket Booth” and “No Ticket Sales on Site.”
“I understand they have to make money,” Shah said of those who are making money, “but it’s disappointing for cricket fans.”
There are tickets for other matches here, but India vs Pakistan, the world’s second most popular sport, never falls into a category similar to “other matches.” Its appeal depends a lot on its rarity, which in turn depends a lot on the intense emotions between the two governments and the strictness of the border. It usually takes something like the World Cup to bring the two countries together. When the tickets went on sale, screens around the world froze, and two minutes later they were all gone.
“I think for a lot of Indians, and I’m sure for a lot of Pakistanis too, watching an India-Pakistan match is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a bucket list thing, especially since this is the World Cup,” said Kiran Kunoor, a Bangalore native who lives in San Francisco. “And it’s not just about cricket. There’s a lot of political drama associated with India-Pakistan and I think a lot of people associate the cricket match with all that.”
He agreed that solid borders help spark curiosity as people interact on opposite sides of the world.
He paid about $1,100 for a good seat.
“Basically the event was an attempt to promote cricket in America,” said Abid Mahmood, who travelled with his wife Shahnaz from Birmingham, England, wearing a Pakistan uniform. “The stadium seats 34,000. Half the tickets, 17,000, will go directly to sponsors. For the remaining 17,000 seats we had 2 million applications. That’s how big the match is.”
He said 28 friends and family members applied, and while none were accepted, he found two others through acquaintances.
“No one I know personally is a Muslim,” said Amar Ahmed, a Karachi native who now lives in Orlando. [lottery]None of my friends in Pakistan or Dubai understood me,” his brother Sohaib added. “Everyone understood. [they know] sign up.”
So they scrolled. So did Sachit Borrisetti of Chicago, who paid $800 for tickets in PDF format only to find they weren’t being accepted at the gate. He tried to check with the seller. Others were considering heading to the Mets’ viewing parties at Citi Field or One World Trade Center.
Others had hastily put together a plan in the past 24 hours: Amit Sharma of Nashville, Aman Thakur of Chicago and Aditya Chauhan of Toronto boarded a shuttle bus from the Westbury Long Island Railroad station at about 7 a.m.
“Of course,” Sharma wrote in a text from inside the stadium, “there will be no greater opportunity anywhere in the world to watch an India vs Pakistan match and the fact that it will be held in the US is another golden opportunity we do not want to miss.”
“I hardly hesitated as the ticket prices were quite high. I probably had only an hour or two to make the decision. I picked up the phone, called Aman and reassured him that it would not happen again anytime soon, especially in America. We quickly booked the match tickets and airfare and flew to New York. Aman also called his brother-in-law Aditya to convince him.”
Tickets cost $1,000 each.
“It’s certainly quite expensive,” Sharma wrote, fully aware of just how many lives one has to live.
Meanwhile, scrollers outside were battling two other issues: The Wi-Fi was starting to get dicey in the crowded streets, and a drizzle had started to fall in the morning.
