Cricket Australia claims record breaking Ashes pre-sale but fans left frustrated due to glitches; how to book match tickets

Cricket Australia on Tuesday (June 3, 2025) announced a record pre-sale for its upcoming summer's much awaited Ashes Test series, starting November 21, 2025, against England. But a large number of fans were seen venting out their frustration on social media as they were left waiting in long online queue complaining of glitches.

The first Test of the Ashes series against England is set to be played in Perth. Todd Greenberg, Cricket Australia chief executive, earlier claimed that the pre-sale would be the biggest in the country “since Taylor Swift was here,” according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Backing Greenberg’s claim of record sales, the Australian daily claimed that more than 220,000 tickets were sold on the opening day of pre-sale – breaching the 2017/18 pre-sale record of 111,741 tickets.

Frustrated fans flood social media

Caught up with agitation, cricket fans flooded Cricket Australia’s Instagram page with complaints about being stuck in the virtual lounge for a long duration. Fans also claimed that they were close to buying tickets when they were forced out from the page and were redirected to rejoin the queue. Some of the fans were also complaining that the priority codes were not working.

“Absolutely broken hearted. Every time I select tickets, the site times out or freezes up,” one fan wrote on Instagram. “Got to 62 in the queue and now all queues have paused,” wrote another user. “My Priority code isn’t working,” a user claimed.

As fans complained about facing problems while buying tickets, a spokesperson of the ticketing company Ticketek told The Guardian that the demand for Cricket Australia’s Summer of Cricket sold at an unprecedented rate “all without issue”.

“We recognise that when we have high-demand events with limited inventory that some fans will miss out and will be disappointed,” they said.

Don’t use multiple browsers: Ticketek warns fans

Ticketek rejected reports of widespread issues with its online sales platform and asked buyers to refrain from using multiple browsers as the site uses bot prevention service

“We encourage all customers not to use multiple browsers when trying to access tickets. Our systems are designed to prevent and block access from bots, and customers attempting to access the site with multiple browsers may be flagged by our bot prevention service,” the spokesperson said.