Melbourne is on the precipice of smashing the Cricket World Cup attendance record, with the final sale of tickets to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) opener expected to sell-out by later today.
Exuberant tournament chiefs are saying they expect a crowd in the region of 90,000 for the England-Australia showdown slated for tomorrow… And to guarantee Australia’s first face-off is one to remember, organizers are selling 1000 standing-room only tickets for a bargain price of just $30-a-piece.
The current World Cup attendance record stands at 87,182 people (for none other than the 1992 MCG final between Pakistan and England). The six-week tournament will begin in Christchurch early Saturday morning with Sri Lanka playing-off against co-hosts New Zealand.
It is also expected the highly-awaited World Cup clash between Pakistan and India on Sunday will become the most-watched cricket match in television history, as stated by Cricket Australia’s Chief Executive.
With a combined population of almost 1.5 billion cricket-loving fanatics and a diaspora in the tens of millions spread out around the world, the decades-old rivalry will no doubt pull-in a massive audience.
“We actually anticipate that that could be the most watched cricket match ever in the history of the game,” Cricket Australia Chief Executive James Sutherland told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“Tickets went on sale in Adelaide six to 12 months ago. They were sold out in 20 minutes. More tickets have since come on sale. They’ve basically gone in seconds. It will be a capacity crowd. There will be literally billions watching on TV for this India-Pakistan match and we understand that 80 percent of the crowd is actually going to be people from outside South Australia.”