Ashes tickets at Edgbaston selling quickly
The first three days of next summer’s opening Ashes Test have sold out.
Edgbaston will hold the series curtain-raiser between England and Australia in 2019, with the hosts looking to regain the urn.
Tickets were released on general sale less than a fortnight ago, with only day four (Sunday, August 4) seats remaining.
Neil Snowball, chief executive of Edgbaston Stadium, said: “We changed our ticketing model for this first Specsavers Ashes Test match by operating a ballot process for the first time.
“This ensured that we could be as fair as possible in allocating tickets, while also providing a priority window to our most loyal supporters and keeping a smaller general sale allocation for new supporters.
“However, the results of the ballot exceeded everyone’s expectations, with applications for almost 65,000 tickets across the first four days, which demonstrates how highly the Ashes is valued as a major global sporting contest.”
Snowball added: “The noise that England supporters generate here at Edgbaston is different to anything else in the country, arguably the world.
“We know that Joe Root and the team love playing here and we believe that there’s nowhere better to start an Ashes Series.
“It promises to be a fantastic occasion. Not just for Edgbaston, but for Birmingham and the wider West Midlands region.”
An announcement on tickets for day five (Monday, August 5) will be made in the new year.
Root’s side were today hoping to get their Test series in Sri Lanka under way – the first match of the post-Alastair Cook era.
“It will be my first Test match without playing with Alastair,” said Root.
“It’s a big loss in terms of experience and everything he brings to the squad and the team and of course we miss him. But it’s a great opportunity for someone else to make that spot their own, stand up and do something special for England.”
