Close to 8.4 million ticket requests have been lodged for the India-Pakistan group match at the 2027 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup — for a stadium that holds 34,000.
The two sides are scheduled to meet on 10 October 2027 at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, in what is only a first-round fixture. Demand for it has outstripped the tournament’s final, to be played at the same ground on 21 November 2027, which has attracted close to eight million requests.
The International Cricket Council said total applications across the tournament passed the 120 million mark, coming from 2.8 million unique fan accounts across 193 countries. The online ballot opened on 1 October.
A 247-to-1 contest for seats
The arithmetic is the story. With 34,000 seats at the Wanderers and roughly 8.4 million requests, applications outnumber available places by about 247 to one — before accounting for allocations to teams, officials, sponsors and hospitality.
Ticket demand for India-Pakistan fixtures has consistently run well ahead of the rest of the cricket calendar. The two neighbours no longer meet in bilateral series, so World Cups and Asia Cups are effectively the only occasions on which they play each other.
The tournament
The 2027 World Cup is co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, and runs from 7 October to 21 November 2027. It is the first senior men’s World Cup to be staged in southern Africa since 2003, when South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya shared hosting duties. The ICC named the 12 host cities in July.
Hiru News credited the BBC for its report; Al Jazeera carried the same figures independently. The ICC published the demand numbers in its own tournament release.
