Nassau residents will have an opportunity to purchase presale tickets for the first event at the county’s International Cricket Stadium in Eisenhower Park on June 1. The match will be a warmup game between Bangladesh and India, two traditional cricket powers. The presale tickets will be available online starting at 10 a.m. Residents will need a code, which is expected to be shared on social media and through the county email list.
This will be the first chance for Long Island cricket fans to purchase tickets for highly sought-after matches, some of which have been resold for thousands of dollars. The match will take place at 10:30 a.m. on June 1, with a total of 25,000 tickets available for residents. County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s spokesman, Chris Boyle, stated that tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday.
Blakeman expressed his excitement about the additional game on June 1 between India and Bangladesh, giving Nassau residents priority ticket access. This opportunity allows everyone to experience World Cup Cricket. The stadium, with a seating capacity of 34,000, will host its first public audience before the official start of the Men’s T20 World Cup, one of the largest sporting events in the world.
Nassau is set to host eight World Cup matches over 11 days, starting on June 3. Among the highly anticipated matches is the one on June 9 between cricket rivals India and Pakistan. Some Long Island fans had previously voiced concerns about the lack of provisions for locals, but arrangements have now been made to address this issue.
Last October, Blakeman agreed to have the International Cricket Council construct a temporary stadium on county-owned property in Eisenhower Park. The ICC predicts a global television viewership of over 1 billion for the tournament. Nearly 4 million people applied for an online lottery in February for tournament tickets at various venues in the United States and the Caribbean.
The stadium will be dismantled after the tournament, with a deadline of July 31 for completion set by the ICC and the county. Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics for Long Island and has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.