England and Wales Cricket Board facing low attendance scare in 2011 season
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is facing a low attendance scare in their 2011 season's international curtain-raiser against Sri Lanka at the end of this month.
A considerably thin England crowd would be there in Cardiff to welcome their Ashes heroes when England take on visiting Sri Lanka in the opening Test of the three-match series starting on May 26, 2011.
This would be England’s first appearance on home soil since winning the Ashes series in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 earlier this year – their first ever Ashes win Down Under since 1986-87.
But their 3-1 Ashes victory was outshined by their 1-6 one-day series loss to the same opposition followed by their dismal performance in the recently concluded ICC World Cup 2011. In the esteemed World Cup event, the World Twenty20 champions faced humiliation
at the hands of low-ranked associate nation, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 in the league stage.
Another realistic reason behind the low attendance is that the opening Test is expected to clash with the Football League Championship play-off final between Cardiff and Swansea, which would be played at Wembley over the same Bank Holiday weekend.
It has been reported that ECB is seriously anxious about the turnout as none of the five days have been sold out yet. Sources have also claimed that the England and Wales Cricket Board has launched an advertisement campaign to accelerate the sales of tickets
above their baseline budget figure.
Prolific top-order batsman of England, Ian Bell, hero of 2010-2011 Ashes series, had also visited Cardiff almost two weeks ago to run the promotional campaign for the 2011 summer international curtain-raiser.
"All the England players love coming to Cardiff -- it's a great place to start the summer”, the 29-year old http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Glamorgan-c784, you
always know it will be an intimidating but knowledgeable crowd - and I know from experience it's better to have that support on your side".
Besides the three-match Test series, both England and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 are scheduled to play a one-off Twenty20 International and five One Day Internationals.
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