Orders are flooding in to the ticket office at the SWALEC Stadium as the priority advanced ticket window opened this morning for the One-Day International between England and India at the Cardiff venue on 27th August 2014.
Over 2,000 tickets were sold in the first 90 minutes of the match tickets being available to buy, as the allocation of early bird discounted tickets were snapped up in record time. Tickets are on general public sale from 9am Friday (4th October) from glamorgancricket.com or by calling 02920 419311.
India have certainly enjoyed playing in the Welsh capital, having visited four times in course of the last three years, including three matches in 2013 as part of the hugely popular ICC Champions Trophy. During the latter competition, India were unbeaten at the Cardiff venue, defeating Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka, with the Indian batsmen posting formidable totals in excess of 300 in the first two games, whilst their talented bowlers dismantled the Sri Lankan batting inside 35 overs in the sell-out semi-final contest.
England were India's opponents in another action-packed contest at Cardiff in 2011 and once again India's batsmen posted a total in excess of 300. But it did not prove to be enough as the then 21 year old debutant Jonny Bairstow provided a nerveless display of power-hitting under the SWALEC Stadium floodlights to secure a thrilling win.
India returned this year to face Australia in a warm-up fixture for the ICC Champions Trophy prior to the opening game of the tournament in Cardiff. India notched up the win in emphatic style, with another 300-plus total, with Dinesh Karthik top-scoring with an unbeaten 146 off 140 balls, before India's bowlers bundled out the Baggy Green's batsmen for just 65.
Two days later, India opened the ICC Champions Trophy tournament against South Africa, and again smashed the 300-run barrier with Shikhar Dharwan and Rohit Sharma putting on 127 for the first wicket to lay the foundations of another formidable total for their opponents, much to the delight of the Indian supporters who filled the Cardiff venue and helped deliver arguably one of the best atmospheres the venue has ever enjoyed. South Africa made it to 304, but finished 26 runs adrift.
India returned for the fourth time to Wales for the ICC Champions Trophy Semi-Final to play Sri Lanka, who were not able to stop the world's number one ranked ODI team from an eight-wicket victory before India went on to collect the tournament title at Edgbaston against hosts England.
The stage is set for the fireworks to return as England host India once more in Wales. The ODI in Cardiff will be the second match of the five-game Series on Wednesday 27th August, with a day time fixture expected to start 10.30am (TBC).
Glamorgan 2013 members can book tickets in reserved areas of the ground, that are not currently available for general sale, and all supporters that buy an India ODI ticket can claim a retrospective £10 discount off their 2014 membership with Glamorgan. Package details for 2014 membership will be released soon.
