KOLKATA, In­dia– Eden Gar­dens, known the world over for its large and bois­ter­ous crowd dur­ing in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et match­es, is again brac­ing for va­cant stands with on­ly 324 sea­son tick­ets sold till yes­ter­day for the No­vem­ber 14-18 In­dia-West In­dies Test. "Nine­ty-eight tick­ets were sold on Thurs­day. 226 tick­ets have been sold to­day (Fri­day)," said Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion of Ben­gal trea­sur­er Subir Gan­gu­ly.

Giv­ing de­tails, he said of the tick­ets worth Rs.500 (US$10), on­ly 116 were sold. "Six­ty-one tick­ets of Ru­pees.1 000 de­nom­i­na­tion and 49 tick­ets priced at Rs.1 500 have been sold." CAB joint sec­re­tary Biswarup Dey, how­ev­er, hoped that the sales will pick up over the next two days now that the two teams are in town. "Al­so dai­ly tick­ets will be on sale from the open­ing day of the game." The sta­di­um, with a sit­ting ca­pac­i­ty of 67,300, record­ed its low­est ever at­ten­dance in an ODI last month when on­ly 20,000 spec­ta­tors at­tend­ed the In­dia-Eng­land game.

Tele­vi­sion gets record view­er­ship

NEO Sports, the of­fi­cial broad­cast­ers of In­dia's on­go­ing Test se­ries against the West In­dies, yes­ter­day claimed that the first match record­ed one of the high­est tele­vi­sion view­er­ships in the last few years. It said that the view­er­ship av­er­age rat­ing of the first three days of the first Test at Fer­oz Shah Kot­la Sta­di­um was 1.74 (TAM) in six met­ros and was more than dou­ble that of the se­ries av­er­age when In­dia toured West In­dies in June. It was one of the high­est rat­ings for an open­ing Test match in the last few years, NEO Sports Broad­cast Pvt Ltd said in a re­lease. In­dia's re­cent tour of Eng­land in Ju­ly had TAM av­er­age of 1.56 while the tour of West In­dies in June record­ed TAM av­er­age of 0.78, ac­cord­ing to the broad­cast­ers. "A num­ber of fac­tors have led to high ex­cite­ment around this se­ries in­clud­ing Sachin Ten­dulkar's mon­u­men­tal record of a 100th cen­tu­ry, the re­turn of all the big play­ers from in­jury in­clud­ing Sachin, Se­hwag and Yu­vraj and sev­er­al oth­er mile­stones such Sachin scor­ing 15,000 Test runs and Dravid near­ing 13,000 runs," NEO Sports said in a re­lease.

Dig­i­cel Se­ries 2012 – WI v Aus­tralia – Sched­ule

Dig­i­cel ODI Se­ries

Fri­day, March 16 – 1st Dig­i­cel ODI – Arnos Vale Crick­et Ground

Sun­day, March 18 – 2nd Dig­i­cel ODI – Arnos Vale Crick­et Ground

Tues­day, March 20 – 3rd Dig­i­cel ODI – Arnos Vale Crick­et Ground

Fri­day, March 23 – 4th Dig­i­cel ODI – Beause­jour Crick­et Ground

Sun­day, March 25 – 5th Dig­i­cel ODI – Beause­jour Crick­et Ground

Dig­i­cel Twen­ty20 Se­ries

Tues­day, March 27 – 1st Dig­i­cel T20I – Beause­jour Crick­et Ground

Fri­day, March 30 – 2nd Dig­i­cel T20I – Kens­ing­ton Oval

Mon­day, April 2 – Wednes­day, April 4 – Aus­tralia 3 day warm up game (venue & opp. TBC)

Dig­i­cel Test Se­ries

Sat­ur­day, April 7 – Wednes­day, April 11 – 1st Dig­i­cel Test – Kens­ing­ton Oval

Sun­day, April 15 – Thurs­day, April 19 – 2nd Dig­i­cel Test – Queen's Park Oval

Mon­day, April 23 – Fri­day, April 27 – 3rd Dig­i­cel Test – Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um