Kyazoonga grinds to a halt with World Cup 2011 tickets up for grabs

Cricket World Cup fever has gripped India and at least the cricket-playing nations. As a result Kyazoonga, the official online ICC partner to sell Cricket World Cup tickets, witnessed the fever pitch levels of support amongst cricket fans as they rushed to Kyazoonga's website to book their World Cup final tickets online. Kyazoonga has a limited number of tickets of the World Cup final in Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium up for grabs.

But Kyazoonga's servers couldn't keep pace with the massive surge of traffic the website received just a few hours earlier when the online ticket booking gates were scheduled for opening. Kyazoonga's web-server couldn't load pages quick enough for the amount of visitors it received earlier today -- it's like a DDoS attack. Naturally, Kyazoonga went down.

According to a TOI report, only 1,000 tickets of the Cricket World Cup final are being sold online (through Kyazoonga), while an additional 3,000 will be sold to fans who queue up outside the stadium's ticket counters.

Alongside the Twitter message, Kyazoonga had this to say on its official Facebook fan page:

"We are facing absolutely unprecedented amounts of traffic from all over the world, with hundreds of millions of people hitting at once. Some of you may have trouble accessing the site. It seems that cricket fever has surpassed all anticipations and expectations. Please bear with us as our global network team works on bringing you the tickets you all have been waiting for."

A lot of cricket fans who were waiting to book their World Cup final tickets online are angry and voicing their frustration on Kyazoonga's Facebook page.

How to Get Your Cricket World Cup Tickets

The Cricket World Cup is just 17 days away, but there’s still a chance to get tickets for many of the first round matches, provided you don’t mind watching some of the less fancied teams.

Unsurprisingly tickets for India’s key games have been snapped up, though the shifting of India vs. England on Feb. 27 from Kolkata’s Eden Gardens to Chinnaswamy Stadium might free up a few, since some people won’t be able to change plans and travel to Bangalore.

The only India match for which tickets are still available is the Ireland game on March 6, also in Bangalore. It’s unlikely to be a classic, but you never know, bearing in mind Ireland dumped Pakistan out of the World Cup in 2007.

If you’re looking for tickets, check on the official World Cup Web site. There is a tickets section, which takes users through to a page run by Kyazoonga.com, the official ticketing partner for the World Cup. Hopefully they’ll have an easier time handling online traffic than the Commonwealth Games ticketing partner, IRCTC, the state-run railways reservations portal, did.

A quick hunt around the site shows that there are still tickets for some exciting clashes, including South Africa vs. England in Chennai on March 6 and Australia vs. New Zealand in Nagpur on Feb. 25. Tickets for the semis (in Colombo and Mohali) and final (Mumbai) are not on sale yet, but it’s possible to sign up on the official website so you can be alerted when they become available.

India is hosting the World Cup with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Tickets for matches in Sri Lanka can be bought on the official website, while Bangladesh has designated a number of City Bank and Agrani Bank branches as retail outlets.

For online purchases, local customers can use credit or debit cards, while those buying from outside India will need to use a valid international credit card. Tickets are delivered by courier, although the site FAQs don’t say whether they courier to international addresses. Tickets can also be picked up at the venue. If you’re in India already, I’d go for the courier option to avoid extra hassle at the stadium.

Fans can also buy tickets directly from the venues, though be prepared to queue and be wary of the dangers that seem to crop up whenever India hosts a major sporting event.

According to a NDTV report, a wall at Chennai’s Chepauk Stadium collapsed today as hundreds of people waited in line to buy tickets. Two people were injured, the report said. For the second time in as many weeks, the World Cup preparations veered along worryingly similar lines to the mess seen in the run-up to last October’s Commonwealth Games.

So much for learning the lessons from that debacle, and all the more reason to book tickets through the relatively safer Internet route. What could possibly go wrong? Actually, forget I asked that.