BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CMC) – A near capacity crowd is expected for today’s opening day of the first Test between West Indies and England at Kensington Oval here.
Cricket West Indies’ commercial and marketing director, Dominic Warne, confirmed on Tuesday that very few tickets remained for day one while the second and third day were also shaping up well.

“It looks like we’re on track for a sellout of the seats. We’ve still got tickets for the party stand which is very famous for bringing Caribbean cricket to life … but most of the seats are sold out,” Warne said in reference to the opening day.
We’re hoping to absolutely confirm it as a sellout and we’re on track. So day one and two are looking really good. Day three is looking really good … we’re looking at seven-and-a-half thousand tickets sold so far and the seating capacity is 11 000.”

England’s tour of the the Caribbean has always been a high profile affair, especially in Barbados which historically has been referred to as ‘Little England’ because of the heavy British influence here.
In recent tours, Kensington Oval has reached near capacity for attendances, making this leg of the series commercially successful.

Warne said fans would be monitoring the development of the game over the first few days before committing to buying tickets for the final days.
“We know there are a lot of locals and English who will be looking to see what happens with the game because you just don’t know in Test cricket these days,” he explained.

“You’ve had two day games and four day games and five day draws. It’s been a lot more irregular Test cricket over the last four or five years.”
Warne said CWI had undertaken several different ticket promotions which had been relatively successful.

“We’ve put these concessions in place because we wanted to make sure that fans got the best chance [of seeing West Indies play],” he said.

“We’re trying to make sure because fans make such a difference to the team. The players have been talking about what it means to be home … and those concessions give locals the best chance possible of getting into the stadium.”

The three-Test series will see matches played at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua from January 31 to February 4, and at the Darren Sammy Cricket Ground in St Lucia from February 9-13.