Two international games set to be played in November between India and Australia in Sydney (a ODI) and Canberra (a T20 game) have already been sold out. Such has been the craze, especially from the Indian diaspora, that the white-ball series to be played in Australia has sold 90,000 tickets for eight matches, just two weeks after ticket-sale window was opened.

According to Cricket Australia, more than 16% of the tickets sold so far have been purchased by Indian fan clubs. Bharat Army, a fan club, has purchased over 2,400 tickets, CA reported. Another group called ‘Fans India’ has lapped up more than 1,400 tickets. Interestingly, according to the CA press release, Amit Goyal from ‘Brissy Baniyas’ has purchased “880 tickets for the Gabba T20I, becoming the highest individual buyer for a single match”, the statement said. Individuals are allowed to buy multiple tickets in Australia.

Koel Morrison, Executive General Manager Events & Operations Cricket Australia:

“Exhausting our public ticket allocation for the SCG ODI and Manuka Oval T20I four months prior to the series is a testament to the tremendous interest for the upcoming season amongst cricket fans.”

Earlier this month, CA’s new CEO Todd Greenberg had talked about the importance of India games for the cricket board. During Covid pandemic in 2020, it was reported that Cricket Australia had to take a loan of A$300 million from Commonwealth Bank. The Indian series in 2021 helped the Australian board. And in October last year, they announced a deficit of A$31.9 million ($21.34m). The last 2024-25 series against India in Australia further boosted the finances of the CA. 

Greenberg acknowledged India’s role. “India are a very important partner, and I get a sense that, and it was before my time, but, you know, those efforts through COVID create relationships between our two countries, between the leadership of our countries to make sure that we are playing each other regularly both here and abroad. When our team tour is India, we know the numbers in their broadcast markets are enormous as well. So they’re a very important partner of ours.”

Tapping the large Indian and Asian-origin fans who live in Australia is one thing, but what about providing the pathway for young Asian-origin kids to play for Australia. Is Australia open enough to do that? 

“I agree we’ve still got a lot of work to do, and, we would like to be attracting more of those communities to be playing cricket, but part of that challenge is on us in how we offer participation. I think our participation offerings in this country are very traditional, and they have historically been offered in the same way to the same types of people over generations. And if we’re going to attract a new generation of participants, then we need to do things differently. We need to think differently. We need to communicate differently, and we need to make sure that the clubs and our environments are both safe and welcoming and inclusive,” Greenberg had said.