THIS refers to much acclaimed online booking facility of match tickets by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), and the lack of crowd at the National Stadium in Karachi. I had bought five online tickets for the second day of the third Test match between Pakistan and England through the relevant booking platform, and I can tell you why there were so few people at the ground.

During the booking process, while I was about to enter my card details, the website started updating itself and I lost the information that I had already typed in. I tried to enter the information again, but before the payment section, a website prompt said I cannot buy more than one transaction against a single CNIC.

After a couple of attempts, I contacted the booking platform and asked for resolution of the matter. I was sent a link for payment within 15 minutes, which I did almost immediately. After few minutes I got a message to the effect that I had been issued the tickets. When I opened the link, to my surprise and frustration, all five tickets had been allotted on far away seats rather than the seats that I had paid for.

I again called the booking company which took several minutes to connect me to an agent. I was told that the website official would adjust all seats in the enclosure. But again they gave me a surprise by telling me that online or printed tickets would not work. I have to go to one of four booths available in this mega city for original printouts.

When I visited one of the four booths, I was told that all the booths had been shifted to the Expo Centre parking lot and that I had to go there for having these tickets issued. How can we expect better attendance at matches if one has to go through such pathetically cumbersome procedures? We are being victimised for merely wanting to see matches live while the whole city suffers from traffic jams due to road blockades.

Would anybody from the PCB clarify the reason behind such complete nonsense? What I am particularly interested in is in under-standing the word ‘online tickets’ in this case.

Affan Rasheed Siddiqui
Karachi

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2022