Bangladesh’s decision not to play has ripped the heart out of the T20 World Cup group stage at Eden Gardens, with Kolkata now facing empty stands, slow ticket sales and a tournament landing softly in one of cricket’s loudest cities.
The ICC moved quickly and slotted Scotland into the group, but the damage already showed. Fans stayed away, queues shrank, and Eden’s vast concrete bowl looked far too big for the level of interest on offer.
Local reports painted a bleak picture. Ticket counters that once buzzed now hosted four or five curious souls at best, with some offline stalls seeing no more than six people at a time.
Eden holds 65,000, yet organisers have sold just 21,000 tickets across all matches so far. That number barely fills a corner, never mind a stadium built for noise and chaos.
The group-stage figures tell the story. West Indies versus Scotland shifted 2,917 tickets, while Scotland versus Italy crawled to just 348. Even England’s games struggled to spark, with fewer than 5,000 sold against Italy and just over 2,000 against Scotland.
The Super Eight and semi-final matches performed better, shifting around 9,000 tickets, but even that fell well short of expectations. With no India match in the group stage, local interest simply drifted elsewhere.
The Cricket Association of Bengal will not panic. They expect to cover costs through main match revenues and see no reason to push extra promotions. Financially, they feel safe. Atmospherically, Eden feels anything but.
The wider issue sits beyond the balance sheet. Kolkata has not embraced this World Cup, with fans talking more about domestic league fixtures than global showpieces.
West Indies and Scotland arrived in the city on Thursday and will train on Friday ahead of Sunday’s opener. Scotland may yet deliver a surprise on the pitch, but off it, Eden Gardens already tells a quieter, more worrying story.
