Motera: On the first day of the Cricket world cup – 2023, the match was played between England and New Zealand, but what was eye-catching during the match was empty chairs through all sections of the Narendra Modi stadium, the largest Cricket stadium of the world.

While scores of netizens expressed their opinions regarding this, Cricket Virendra Sehwag through a tweet suggested that there should be free tickets for school and college children. He tweeted – ‘Hopefully after office hours, there should be more people coming in. But for games not featuring Bharat, there should be free tickets for school and college children. With the fading interest in 50 over game, it will definitely help that youngsters get to experience a World Cup game and players get to play in front of a full stadium.’

The Cricket lovers said, the stadium remained empty because most cricket lovers in Ahmedabad spent money for tickets of India – Pakistan match and reserved their further budget for the final match which is going to be played in this stadium.

A cricket lover, named Bhavesh Bhavsar said, “first of all, it’s a weekday, the other thing is that India is not playing today, then there are blockbuster matches ahead such as all the matches in which India would play, the match between India and Pakistan, and the final match which is also going to be played here, so one would reserve budget for these matches.’

A cricket lover Payal Shah said, “there’s temperature above 35 effectively and close to 40 if you are out in sunlight. People would prefer to join matches on such days only for strong reason, free tickets or may join in the evening hours. T20 format is better.”

Lot of netizens complained that while the stadium was empty, the tickets for the match were not available on Book My Show. However such claims could not be verified.

Surprisingly most tickets are showing sold (grey ones) but the stadium is empty. Doesn’t add up! 🙄 pic.twitter.com/5B8XCCRhAa

— VK! (@varoun3883) October 5, 2023

It’s worth noting that hundreds of free tickets were distributed among the women cadres of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for today’s match. As per a news report, the total count of such tickets was 40,000. However it was not clear, whether this count covers only today’s match or all five matches to be played in Ahmedabad.

Memes were raining on X(formerly Twitter) regarding the empty stadium. Like for an example, one tweeple tweeted the stadium in Ahmedabad should be today called the world’s largest empty cricket stadium during the match.

pic.twitter.com/pPpkknFzPu

— Talk Before Wicket (@TalkB4Wicket) October 5, 2023

Akshay Bhatt, a Cricket lover said, ‘Sehwag’s tweet is very correct. If the organizers were in know that lot many of tickets are actually not sold, they could oblige thousands of people by distributing free tickets. The empty stadium in World Cup match doesn’t look good.’