High Lord’s Test ticket prices set by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has disappointed and angered a significant section of English fans.
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The iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground is all geared up to deck up in a sea of Blue, White, and Red, during the first Test between England and New Zealand, as Britain would celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II to honour her on becoming the world’s third-longest serving monarch in recorded history.
Apart from the aforementioned grand event, the English fans in particular also await to look forward to some exciting Cricketing action as Ben Stokes would lead the side for the first time as full-time Test captain, also with Brendon McCullum as the new head coach.
However, with just a half-day’s time left for the commencement of the first of the three-match Test series, nearly 16,000 tickets, as per ESPNcricinfo, are yet to be sold, including 9,000 of them for Day 4 on Sunday.
A huge section of the fans have blamed it on the excessively high price of the tickets on offer at a time when UK is experiencing a high cost-of-living, coupled with the ever rising rate of inflation.
Majority of tickets were of the £110-160 bracket, including the Under-16 age group ones as well, with concessions only on offer in the cheapest price bracket for the latter.
Lords say it’s the jubilee bank holiday that’s caused low ticket sales. But I also believe cost of tickets is a significant factor. Not just at Lord’s but across all of cricket. Buy tickets or pay your leccy bill? Not much of a choice is it.
— Elizabeth Ammon (@legsidelizzy) May 30, 2022
MCC’s biggest mis-step on ticketing for the Lord’s Test is only offering concessions in the cheapest price brackets
Charging £100+ for an Under-16 ticket is pure greed – made worse by the fact it takes place on a bank holiday during half-term
— Matt Roller (@mroller98) May 31, 2022
Ben Stokes and Michael Vaughan react on High Lord’s Test ticket prices
Skipper Ben Stokes, on Wednesday reacted on the issue at hand as well, and stood by the spectators’ concerns while asserting that the ticket prices does need to be looked at.
“We want to be attracting people to come and watch us because of the cricket that we play and how successful we are. But I guess you have to look at how much it’s going to cost someone to get into the ground,” remarked Stokes.
Former England skipper Michael Vaughan expressed his displeasure on the same, while also urged the ECB to reconsider allotment of two Test matches to Lord’s each summer.
“You can’t keep saying, ‘we are Lord’s, we need two Test matches a year’ and then charge over £150 in the holidays, during the jubilee and during a cost-of-living crisis,” he said.
“It’s scandalous that Lord’s thinks it can get away with a ticket price for one day of Test cricket that is the same as what you would charge for a season ticket for the Hundred. We have all these administrators telling us Test cricket is the pinnacle and then they do this,” he further added.
