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8.4 million ticket requests for Pakistan-India clashSports
The 2027 World Cup group match between Pakistan and India has drawn more ticket requests than the final itself, organisers confirmed in their first ballot update.
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The group-stage match between Pakistan and India at the 2027 Men’s Cricket World Cup has attracted 8,397,294 ticket requests, organisers have confirmed. The figure makes the October 10, 2027 fixture at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg the most sought-after match of the tournament so far.
Remarkably, demand for the group match has already passed demand for the final. The final, scheduled for November 21, 2027 at the same Johannesburg venue, has drawn 7,900,944 requests, almost 500,000 fewer than the Pakistan-India encounter. The two matches sit at the top of the tournament’s demand table by a wide margin.
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The figures were released by the International Cricket Council in its first ticket ballot update, covering applications received up to November 1, 2026. The ballot remains open until November 21, 2026, so the totals are expected to rise further before registration closes.
Across the whole tournament, more than 120 million ticket requests have been received, with a total of 120,809,467 applications recorded. Nearly three million fans from 193 countries have applied, underlining the global reach of a tournament returning to Africa for the first time in 24 years.
It is important to understand what these numbers mean. A ticket request is not a sold ticket. Fans register in a ballot for the chance to buy tickets, and each fan can enter once per match and request up to four tickets. The 8.4 million figure therefore counts requests, not individual spectators, and the Wanderers holds around 34,000 people.
The 2027 tournament will be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, featuring 14 teams playing 57 matches across 12 venues between October and November 2027. Fixtures in South Africa alone have drawn more than 105 million requests across 41 matches at eight venues.
Pakistan-India matches have long been among the most watched fixtures in world cricket, and the ballot numbers confirm that the rivalry loses none of its pulling power even when the meeting comes in the group stage. For fans, the message is clear: with demand running into the millions for a 34,000-seat ground, most applicants will miss out, and the ballot, not the box office queue, will decide who gets in.
The ballot window closes on November 21, 2026, and fans who do not register by then will not be eligible to buy tickets through this ballot once it closes. For supporters of either side, the next few weeks are the last chance to join a queue already more than 200 times the size of the stadium.
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