KARACHI: When Junaid reached the Arts Council Express Center, only tickets priced at Rs 12,000 for the Pakistan Super League (PSL) final were available. It was 11 o’clock in the morning. Yet, people had already purchased comparatively cheaper tickets for the match. With no other option, he bought 15 tickets for the VIP lounge after consulting his colleagues on their cellphones.
“We all want to watch the match together,” he told Arab News on Thursday. “My friends and I are super excited! I’m a huge fan of cricket, but I’ve never watched a match in the stadium.”
As it turned out, Junaid was among the lucky ones. Many people had to go home empty-handed since they could not afford such expensive tickets. Shah Alam, who came down from the portside neighborhood of Keemari, could not buy a ticket despite waiting for an hour in a long queue.
“I only had Rs 4,000 in my pocket,” he said. “Even that’s a large sum of money for me, but I was still willing to spend it.”
Khurram, a TCS official at the Metropole express center, told Arab News that his office could only sell 200 tickets of Rs 1,000 and Rs 4,000. However, they sold out soon after the center opened at 9 o’clock. “There was already a long queue outside when we opened the office,” he told Arab News.
His colleagues displayed a message outside the center, saying: “PSL portal not working. PSL tickets are not available, all sold.”
Apart from the designated TCS centers selling tickets in the city, people also thronged other marketplaces in Karachi to buy t-shirts of their favorite cricket teams.
“We’ve kept t-shirts of all the cities,” Muhammad Mohsin, a garment shop owner, told Arab News. “Yet, most of our customers want Karachi Kings’ t-shirts. We’ve almost gone out of stock and have ordered more from our supplier.”
Ansar Alam, who came to the shop to buy t-shirts for his sons, was a bit disappointed since he could not get match tickets. “It’s a bit sad,” he said, “but we’ll watch the final on a big screen.”
With four league contests remaining in Sharjah, Islamabad United and Quetta Gladiators are at the top of the point’s table. Lahore Qalandars are out of the tournament, while Karachi Kings, Multan Sultan and Peshawar Zalmi are striving to get into the qualifiers, eliminators and the final.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of cricket fans in this seaside metropolis are waiting for a thrilling contest in Karachi, hoping to see their city’s squad play on their home ground.
“It will be amazing if Karachi Kings make it to the final,” said Junaid. “But even if they don’t, we’ll still enjoy since these are all our own teams!”