[AtheK]

Stuart board might have just picked last wicket of his career and what a ball it was. It came with change of bail and change of luck!!

Superb bowling.

And Catch dropped or what a fairy tale ending it would have been.

And he does it, what a fairy tale ending, way to go out champ!

[rx100]

Originally Posted by Revvatron

Even after 8 wickets down we still can't be sure Australia is going to wrap up quickly.

Ah, now it’s one wicket vs 55 runs. Needs to see how Alex Carey going to approach this.

Edit : And Broad done it. What a wonderful series it was.

[Col Mehta]

As Nasser Hussain commented - “who writes these Ashes scripts”!?

What an enchanting conclusion to the tale of a legendary red ball cricketer!

[Eddy]

In my eyes, Stuart Broad holds a record: Maximum test runs/wickets, with minimum respect as a competitor.

There is no doubting his skill but........

[narayans80]

Good farewell gift for Stuart Broad. Gets to pick the final wicket on his last test. Not a fan of him, but I'll admit, he has made the best retirement calls in recent years.

The Woakes-Wood pair have impressed through this Ashes even though they've not been given the new ball. It almost hurt England in this decider.

God knows what Jimmy is thinking.

Now that the Ashes and Pakball are done. When is the next ODI/test series worth watching?

[khanmaj]

Originally Posted by Revvatron

Even after 8 wickets down we still can't be sure Australia is going to wrap up quickly. Didn't expect England to blow them away after tea. This Ashes beats all the suspense thrillers

Absolutely. England had upper hand at many times and could have easily won the series but fumbled at some crucial moments such as Stokes dropping Lyon in the second innings of the first test. But anyways 2-2 is a fitting result of this wonderful series.

All aside, the beauty of this series was two contrast strategies, the bazball and Aussie style.

[PPS]

Australia will be disappointed after being 2-0 up! England were relentless & never gave up. If there's any team in the world which is a threat to India's enviable home test record, its England. Though I do not know who their frontline spinner is going ahead. If we produce rank turners don't be surprised to see the likes of Root picking up truckload of wickets.

[AtheK]

ODI World Cup tickets to go on sale on August 25, 41 days before the first match

August 25: Warm-up and World Cup matches not featuring India

August 30: India warm-up matches in Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram

August 31: India World Cup matches in Chennai (vs Australia, Oct 8), Delhi (vs Afghanistan, Oct 11) and Pune (vs Bangladesh, Oct 19)

September 1: India World Cup matches in Dharamsala (vs New Zealand, Oct 22), Lucknow (vs England, Oct 29) and Mumbai (vs Sri Lanka, Nov 2)

September 2: India World Cup matches in Kolkata (vs South Africa, Nov 5) and Bengaluru (vs Netherlands, Nov 12)

September 3: India World Cup matches in Ahmedabad (vs Pakistan, Oct 14)

September 15: Semi-finals and final

"Ahead of tickets going on sale, fans will have the opportunity to register their interest via https://www.cricketworldcup.com/register from 15 August. This will enable them to receive ticket news first and help secure their spot at the World Cup, and experience the joy of cricket in one day," the ICC said in a statement explaining the process.

How exactly people wanting to come from another countries plan travel, such stupidity.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by AtheK

How exactly people wanting to come from another countries plan travel, such stupidity.

The ordinary stadium viewer is the lowest priority for BCCI. The money is in TV/streaming broadcast of matches and adverts. Even in stadiums, for the popular matches, a lot of tickets go to politicians, local cricket body associations, corporate seats, VIPs, super-rich, etc. Late rescheduling doesn't matter to such people.

Whatever fraction of bad seats the ordinary fans fight over, get lathi-charged by cops while entering stadiums, and to use terrible stadium facilities, really doesn't contribute much to the overall revenue and doesn't even register with the BCCI. Sad, shouldn't be that way, but that's the truth.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by am1m

Whatever fraction of bad seats the ordinary fans fight over, get lathi-charged by cops while entering stadiums, and to use terrible stadium facilities, really doesn't contribute much to the overall revenue and doesn't even register with the BCCI. Sad, shouldn't be that way, but that's the truth.

Oh man,this reminds me of a story, let me tell you about my experience during 2011WC. We were 3 friends traveling to INDIA for QF and Final game. We had the tickets for the games. This is the incident for the QF game at Motera Ahmedabad.

We reached the stadium well in time, found Long haphazard queues. We were standing and found commotion every 5 minutes, that someone is losing his wallet (pick pocketeering). I saw this and told my friends to be extra careful about their wallets. My friend was carrying a high end binoculars to watch the game, we reached the security and they didn’t let us take the binoculars inside the stadium. So we called the driver (who dropped us) and handed over to him. At this point the driver (being a local) says, you guys go inside, I will get this in and he did after greasing a cop.

Now inside and almost settled down during the first half, I asked my friends to get something to drink and eat, so I went out, it was horrible with 3 people at the counter and 300 people ordering, forced my way towards the counter, I took money out of the wallet and got the order, by the time I was out from the rush with food/drinks in my hand, I checked my wallet was gone. Lost a bit of cash/cards. Tried to look for it but was dejected and couldn’t find it. Told the story to my friends and cancelled my cards.

Now second half, my friend told me I will get something to eat, since he knew there was pick pocketing going on, he only took his cash and left his wallet with me. He came after 15-20 mins inside the stadium with food/drinks, only to tell us that his mobile is gone

Third friend was lucky as he never went out seeing our conditions.

Match over - while moving out from the stadium, we saw the security/cop guy sitting on the chair and a heap/mountains of wallets laying by his side. I asked the guy, what is this, he says, all the wallets which have been pick pocketed and thrown after taking out the cash. I started to look if I could find mine among those, but couldn’t.

Lesson learned - For final match we just went with a bit of cash and nothing untoward happened except to deal with some horrible sanitary conditions !

Eventually INDIA won and we forgot all our miseries 😊

[AtheK]

IPL is atleast a bit better managed in Bangalore and I have been to 6 matches, major struggle are three at this point. Have not expereinced Pick pocketing atleast in Bangalore or seen any one complaining about it, hopefully same replicates in other stadiums.

1. Long queues to get inside, which is kind of understandable as security checks do take time, and lot of people carry lighters and stuff so that takes up time.

2. People occupying your allocated seats and then fighting to get up from there, so you have to call some security and get it sorted. Happened 3 times out of 6 times with us.

3. The overall condition of stadium with badly maintained rest rooms and leaking water everywhere.

4. The biggest one though is how difficult it is to get a ticket itself.

Eating is not much an issue these days as they have multiple stalls and also hawkers keep roaming around during the match. Though in T20 with shorter duration of match you really can get without eating if needed.

What is sad is the condition of the stadium in general, it was raining and roof was leaking from everywhere, public transport is tough to get, but luckily with two metro stations near the stadium now, it is easy to get away from MG road and go to some other station and hail a cab.

It is still a struggle overall and BCCI can do much better, but they are just busy counting the money. When I see the crowd in Australia, SA and England having a beer and enjoying the match it really makes me envy them, wish some day we will get 50-60% of a similar treatment.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by AtheK

When I see the crowd in...enjoying the match it really makes me envy them...

Have been for a few different matches in Bangalore.

Was lucky to have been there when Sachin got his 14,000th Test run. And fortunately, they were not anal about cameras then, so have a decent shot of the shot that got him that run!

Was also lucky to watch the very first IPL match where McCullum hammered RCB for 158* - a colleague at work had tickets and couldn't go, so he literally gave them to us in the office!

Have also seen what a corporate-hospitality box experience looks like thanks to a well-heeled friend.

But now I think it's not worth going for any match in the stadium, unless you're in a sponsored corporate box or something like that. Chinnaswamy stadium is badly maintained. And hasn't improved over the years. And at any price point, if the cost of the ticket includes the risk of getting whacked by a cop's lathi while entering or leaving, for absolutely no fault of your own, but because of bad-crowd management, no thanks!

The fondest memory I have of watching a match live was India-A vs. WI-A in Mysore (https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/...full-scorecard), almost a decade ago. Morning train to Mysore. Bisi dose and coffee for breakfast. Civilized walk into the beautiful Gangothri Glades ground. Peaceful crowd, lounging around on the grass, the crack of the ball, the sound of birds, gentle lull with sudden intensity for a boundary or a wicket. And some pretty high-profile names too- Pujara, Brathwaite, Shami, KL. Cricket as it was meant to be watched.

[AtheK]

Originally Posted by am1m

Have been for a few different matches in Bangalore.

Was lucky to have been there when Sachin got his 14,000th Test run. And fortunately, they were not anal about cameras then, so have a decent shot of the shot that got him that run!

Was also lucky to watch the very first IPL match where McCullum hammered RCB for 158* - a colleague at work had tickets and couldn't go, so he literally gave them to us in the office!

Same pinch mate, been to both those matches as well, although it was sad to see how RCB was hammered it did setup the tone for IPL. Ishant sharma cleaning up Rahul is something I still remember.

Never been to Corporate box, maybe some day will get a chance. Ticket prices in itself in Chinnaswamy has skyrocketed, so even I don't feel like going anymore. That said I am planning to go for one world cup match probably Australia vs Pakistan or Pakistan vs Newzealand or England Vs Srilanka, I am hoping the crowd will not be as much it will be for India vs Netherland match (And this match probably would be pretty boring as well). Son loves cricket so could be a good chance to be a part of a World cup match. Hopefully it is easier to get ticket for those matches, but we will only know on August 25th. Would be good to take some Anti Pakistan hoardings and perhaps get featured on TV

[SoumenD]

Originally Posted by AtheK

When I see the crowd in Australia, SA and England having a beer and enjoying the match it really makes me envy them, wish some day we will get 50-60% of a similar treatment.

Have watched cricket match in a stadium only twice in life and both were in Oval, Adelaide. First was the pink ball test(Nov,2015 between Aus vs NZ) & 2nd was a T20 match(26th Jan,2016 between Aus & India). Enjoyed them to the fullest in the way you mentioned(beverages, hot dogs and what not). One was from the lawn side and other one from the stands. I remember just behind the lawn side there were many people enjoying barbeque as well with their trucks parked. All that for 10-20 AUD only

Tried visiting Chinnaswamy once during IPL & seeing the crowd took a U-Turn. With our population & cricket craze, I doubt we can ever get such easy going experience in any stadium of India. I still wish to visit once for a test match maybe as I hope the crowd for those would be far less.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by SoumenD

I still wish to visit once for a test match maybe as I hope the crowd for those would be far less.

I was sorely disappointed that Bangalore has not been allotted a Test match when England visit early next year. I am planning to catch the first test match (Jan 25th, Thursday - Jan 29th, Monday) at Hyderabad.

A drive to Hyderabad for the long weekend plus a day at the stadium would be a good start to 2024 .