Buying Cricket Tickets in Australia: Ballots, Sales and Resale
How cricket tickets in Australia are sold: the priority pre-sale, staggered on-sale times, price bands, purchase limits and the resale cap.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Fixtures & tickets19 min read
- Two agencies
- Ticketek and Ticketmaster split the venues between them
- Purchase limit
- 19 tickets per person per match day
- Cheapest men's international
- From about 30 dollars adult and 10 dollars child
- Cheapest women's international
- From about 20 dollars adult and 5 dollars child
- Pre-sale access
- Free registration with Cricket Australia, which issues an access code
- On-sale time
- 11am local time at the host venue, staggered across the country
- Legal resale cap
- No more than 10 per cent above the original price in most states
- Record sales day
- More than 311000 tickets sold in a single day during the 2025-26 Ashes sale
If you are trying to work out how to buy cricket tickets in Australia, the honest summary is that there is no ballot, no lottery and no secret. Cricket tickets australia-wide are sold through two agencies on a fixed calendar: Cricket Australia announces the summer schedule around March, opens a priority pre-sale to anyone who has registered a free account in late May or June, and puts the remainder on general sale a day or two later at 11am local time at each host venue. Whether you get the day you want depends almost entirely on whether you are logged in and ready when that clock starts.
The two agencies matter more than most people realise. Ticketmaster handles the Sydney Cricket Ground, Perth Stadium and the WACA Ground. Ticketek handles the rest, including the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Adelaide Oval, the Gabba and Manuka Oval. If you are buying tickets for two Tests in one summer you will probably need accounts with both, and you cannot combine them into one basket.
This page covers the buying mechanics only: the sale calendar, the pre-sale, price bands, purchase limits, delivery, refunds and the resale rules. It deliberately does not cover whether a state membership is a better deal than buying day tickets, which is a separate question with a separate answer, or how the fixtures get chosen in the first place. Both of those have their own pages, linked below.
The sale calendar, from schedule release to first ball
The Australian cricket ticket year follows the same rhythm every season, and knowing it is worth more than any trick.
The schedule for the men's and women's international summer is announced in March, roughly eight months before the first ball. The 2026-27 programme was released on 22 March 2026, covering 27 matches at 14 venues across eight months. That announcement is the starting gun. It gives you the dates and venues but no prices and no way to buy.
Prices and the pre-sale window are published separately, usually in late May, and the pre-sale itself runs for about ten days in June. The general public on-sale follows immediately after the pre-sale closes. For the 2025-26 Ashes, the priority window closed at midnight on 12 June 2025 and the general release opened on 13 June.
Big Bash tickets run on a later and looser cycle. The BBL fixture list is typically confirmed over winter and tickets appear from about September, often with an early-bird price that lapses in mid-October. Domestic first-class and one-day cricket needs no ticket at all at most grounds.
- Schedule announcedCricket Australia publishes the full international fixture list around March, about eight months before the first match, with venues and dates but no prices.
- Registration opensAnyone can create a free Cricket Australia account, which issues the access code required to enter the priority pre-sale.
- Priority pre-saleRegistered supporters buy first, usually across about ten days in June, at prices that have sometimes been slightly below the general sale price.
- General on-saleRemaining tickets are released to everyone at 11am local time at each host venue, staggered so that states do not compete for the same server capacity.
- Barcodes releasedTickets are delivered as locked barcodes that unlock closer to the season, often around late September, after which they can be transferred by email.
The sequence Cricket Australia has used in recent summers. Dates shift by a few weeks year to year and the pre-sale length has varied between about a week and a fortnight.
Registering for the priority pre-sale
The pre-sale is the only genuine advantage available to an ordinary buyer, and it is free.
Cricket Australia runs a registered supporter list. Joining takes a few minutes and costs nothing, and in return you receive an access code by email before the pre-sale opens. The code is entered at the agency checkout and unlocks the pre-sale inventory. In some summers the pre-sale price has been marginally lower than the general sale price for the same seat, which is a small further reason to bother.
What the code is not is a queue jump within the pre-sale. Everyone who registered enters at the same moment, so a high-demand fixture can still exhaust its pre-sale allocation quickly. In the 2025-26 Ashes sale, the first two days at both the Gabba and the Sydney Cricket Ground ran out of pre-sale inventory within hours.
The one real trap is registering late. Codes are issued in advance of the window opening, and a registration made on the morning the pre-sale starts may not be processed in time.
What the demand actually looks like
Numbers help calibrate how hard you need to try.
- 220000Tickets sold on day one of the pre-sale
- 111741Previous pre-sale day-one record set in 2017-18
- 311611Best single day of the sale
- 55000Boxing Day day-one seats sold in that period
Figures reported by Cricket Australia during and immediately after the June 2025 pre-sale. These are sales counts across all five Tests, not attendances, and an Ashes summer sits at the extreme end of Australian demand rather than being typical.
That is an Ashes summer, and the Ashes distorts everything. A home series against England is the one fixture where the rule holds at every venue: days one and two sell first, day three sells well, days four and five are speculative because the match may not reach them.
For a summer against a less commercially powerful opponent the picture is completely different. Tickets to a Test against Bangladesh or the West Indies are usually available on the morning of play, and the cheap general admission areas at Adelaide Oval or the Gabba rarely fill. Judge the urgency by the opponent, not by the format.
Which agency sells which ground
This is the single most common source of confusion for interstate and overseas buyers.
| Venue | Agency | Typical cricket content |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney Cricket Ground | Ticketmaster | New Year's Test, ODIs, T20Is, Sixers |
| Perth Stadium | Ticketmaster | Opening Test of the summer, ODIs, Scorchers |
| WACA Ground | Ticketmaster | Women's internationals, state cricket, WBBL |
| Melbourne Cricket Ground | Ticketek | Boxing Day Test, T20Is, Stars |
| Adelaide Oval | Ticketek | Day-night Test, ODIs, Strikers |
| The Gabba | Ticketek | Tests, T20Is, Heat |
| Manuka Oval | Ticketek | T20Is, women's internationals |
Two practical consequences follow. First, create and verify both accounts before the pre-sale, not during it, because a password reset at 11am costs you the seats you wanted. Second, the agency determines the app you use for delivery and transfer, so a family attending the Boxing Day Test and the New Year's Test will be juggling two different apps for the same trip.
The split is not permanent. Venues re-tender their ticketing contracts, and a ground can move between agencies between summers. Check the fixture page rather than assuming.
Price bands and what the entry-level ticket buys
Cricket Australia has held the entry-level adult price for men's internationals at about 30 dollars for several consecutive summers, with children from about 10 dollars. Women's internationals start lower again, from roughly 20 dollars adult and about 5 dollars for children.
The entry-level price is real but it is also the worst seat in the ground. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground it puts you high in the upper deck at one end. At Adelaide Oval it is usually the eastern grass, which is pleasant and unreserved. At Perth Stadium it is the upper tiers behind the arm. The difference between the cheapest ticket and a mid-tier reserved seat side-on to the pitch is often 40 to 60 dollars, and for a full day of Test cricket that is usually money well spent.
Premium and hospitality products sit above the public categories and are sold separately, sometimes through the venue rather than the agency. They are priced in the hundreds rather than the tens.
The 19-ticket purchase limit
There is a cap of 19 tickets per person per match day, subject to availability. Three things follow from how it is written.
It is per day, not per match, so a family buying all five days of a Test makes five separate purchases against five separate caps. It is per account, so a household with two registered accounts has more headroom than one. And it is subject to availability, meaning that on a constrained day the agency may quietly reduce the practical limit well below 19.
Groups of 20 or more are pushed out of the public sale entirely and into Cricket Australia's group and premium sales channel. That is worth using rather than working around: a corporate or club booking through that channel gets seats together, which a public sale rarely delivers at that size.
Attempts to defeat the cap with multiple accounts and different cards are exactly what the conditions of entry are written to catch, and cancellation without refund is the stated consequence.
Buying a Test match: which days to take
A Test is five separate products and they are not equally good value.
Day one is the certainty. The match will be played, the ground will be at its fullest, and the atmosphere at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 26 December or the Sydney Cricket Ground on 4 January is the reason most people go. Day two is nearly as safe.
Day three is the value pick. Prices are the same as day one at most venues, crowds are smaller, seats are easier, and in a competitive match day three is often when the game turns.
Days four and five are a gamble. Australia has finished home Tests inside three days more than once in recent summers, including two Tests of the 2025-26 Ashes. A day-five ticket at a venue where the pitch is quick can be worth nothing at all. Ticket conditions in recent summers have provided for a refund where a scheduled day is not played, so read the terms for that summer before you take the risk rather than after.
Day-night Tests and start times
The pink-ball Test changes the buying calculation. Adelaide Oval has held a day-night Test under a multi-year agreement, the Gabba hosted one during the 2025-26 Ashes, and the March 2027 anniversary match at the MCG is also scheduled as a day-night fixture with a 2pm start.
For a day-night match the crowd profile flips. The best session is the last one, attendance builds through the afternoon rather than dropping away, and a single-day ticket is more useful to somebody working that day. If you can only attend one day of a pink-ball Test and you have a choice, take a middle day, when the twilight session usually decides something.
Start times vary by venue and time zone. Perth Tests have started at 10.20am local, Adelaide at 11am, and the eastern venues at 10.30am. The published start time is on the fixture page and it is not consistent across the summer.
Big Bash tickets
The Big Bash League is deliberately the cheap end of Australian cricket. Adult entry generally sits in the mid-twenties and child tickets are heavily discounted, with early-bird pricing available before the season and family packages at most clubs.
Three differences from the international sale matter. Big Bash tickets go on sale much later, usually from about September or October. Club memberships, sold by the eight clubs rather than by Cricket Australia, often work out cheaper than buying four or five individual match tickets. And demand is concentrated: a derby, a New Year's Eve fixture or a final sells out while an ordinary midweek game does not.
The Women's Big Bash follows the same pattern at lower prices again, and many WBBL fixtures have been free or included with a men's ticket when they are played as a double-header. The competition itself is covered in the guide to the Women's Big Bash League.
Women's internationals
Women's international tickets are the best value in Australian cricket and the least contested. Entry has started at about 20 dollars adult and 5 dollars for children, and several fixtures each summer are staged at smaller grounds such as North Sydney Oval, Junction Oval, Allan Border Field and Karen Rolton Oval where you are within a few metres of the boundary rope.
The trade-off is capacity. Those grounds hold a fraction of what the major stadiums hold, so a high-profile women's Ashes fixture can sell out faster in absolute terms than a men's Test at the same time of year. If the fixture you want is at a boutique venue, treat it as a high-demand sale even though the price is low.
Domestic cricket, which mostly costs nothing
General entry to Sheffield Shield matches and most men's and women's domestic one-day fixtures at the major grounds has been free in recent seasons. There is no ticket, no allocation and no queue. A gate opens on one side of the ground and you walk in.
This is the most underused option in Australian cricket. In October, February and March you can watch Test-quality players in an almost empty stadium at no cost. Finals are occasionally handled differently, with a restricted footprint or a nominal charge, and it is worth checking the state association's fixture page before travelling.
Delivery, barcodes and transfers
Australian cricket tickets are not delivered immediately. Barcodes are held locked for months after purchase and released on a set date, often around late September for a summer beginning in November.
This frustrates buyers but the logic is sound: a locked barcode cannot be screenshotted, duplicated and sold on a classifieds site in July. Once the barcodes unlock, both agencies allow you to transfer individual tickets to another person by email through their app, which is the correct way to hand a spare day to a friend.
Do not rely on a screenshot. Both agencies now use rotating or dynamic barcodes for high-demand events, and a static image will not scan. Download the app, log in before you leave home, and make sure the phone has battery, because ground wifi at a full MCG is not something to depend on.
Refunds, rain and abandoned days
The published position is that refunds or exchanges apply where a match is cancelled, moved, rescheduled or affected by bad weather. What that means in practice depends on the summer's conditions of entry, which are republished each year.
The clearest case is a completely washed-out day of a Test or a fully abandoned limited-overs match. The murkiest is a day on which a few overs are bowled before the covers come on, which typically does not trigger a refund at all.
Hospitality is treated separately and less generously. A premium guest who accessed the facility generally receives no refund even if no overs are bowled, because the contract was for the facility. If you are spending several hundred dollars on a hospitality package, read that clause specifically.
The resale rules
Australia caps ticket resale, and the cap is 10 per cent above the original supply cost in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, subject to how each state defines the covered events and venues.
The legislation differs in the detail. In New South Wales the Fair Trading Act prohibits advertising a ticket for resale above that margin, and resale in the vicinity of certain venues including the Sydney Cricket Ground and Sydney Olympic Park is separately prohibited. In Victoria the cap bites when the relevant minister declares a fixture a major or sports ticketing event, which is not automatic. In Queensland, restrictions apply to events at Stadiums Queensland venues, with separate penalties for the seller and the buyer.
Cricket Australia's own conditions of entry apply the 10 per cent limit regardless, and the stated consequence of breaching it is cancellation of the ticket, refusal of entry, or both.
Buying a resale ticket safely
If you missed the sale, there is a legitimate route and several illegitimate ones.
The legitimate route is the official resale platform operated by the agency that sold the ticket. When a seat is resold through that system the original barcode is voided and a fresh one is issued to the buyer, so the ticket is verifiably valid. It is the only resale channel where the venue will back you up at the gate.
The illegitimate routes are unauthorised resale sites, social media marketplace listings and the person outside the gate. The failure modes are well known: the barcode has already been scanned, the same barcode has been sold to four people, the ticket is a screenshot of somebody else's, or the seat does not exist. None of these leave you with any recourse, and the venue is entitled to refuse entry.
A simple test: if the seller will not transfer the ticket to you through the official agency app, do not buy it.
Accessible seating and companion tickets
Accessible bookings are handled outside the standard sale by each agency, using an interactive map, a dedicated phone line or an online form depending on the venue. Companion Card holders can generally obtain a companion ticket at no charge on production of the card at entry.
Two practical points. Accessible allocations at the major Australian grounds are small and do not restock when general tickets are released, so book in the pre-sale rather than the general sale. And confirm the specific bay before you buy, because at grounds like the Gabba and Adelaide Oval the accessible platforms sit in a handful of fixed locations with very different views.
Concessions, children and who qualifies
Child pricing covers ages 3 to 15 across most categories. Under-3s generally do not need a ticket if they are on a lap, though at a full house that is less comfortable than it sounds for a five-hour day.
Concession pricing is stricter than people assume. It requires an eligible card in the attendee's own name: a full-time student card, a pensioner concession card, a health care card or a veteran card. A dependant named on a parent's card does not qualify in their own right. Gate staff at the major grounds do check on high-demand days, and a concession ticket without the card can mean paying the difference on the spot.
A practical plan for one summer
Working backwards from the first ball, this is the sequence that costs nothing and gets you the best result.
In March, read the schedule announcement and decide which two or three days you actually want, including a second choice. In April or May, register the free Cricket Australia account and create or verify accounts with both Ticketek and Ticketmaster. In late May, watch for the pricing and pre-sale announcement.
On pre-sale morning, be logged in ten minutes early with the access code pasted somewhere accessible and a payment card saved. Buy the days you want in order of scarcity: an Ashes day one first, a day three later. Check the barcode release date and set a reminder. Then leave it alone until September.
For Big Bash fixtures, revisit in September and compare a club membership against the individual tickets you would otherwise buy.
Common mistakes
Assuming one agency covers the whole country. It does not, and the Sydney and Melbourne Tests in the same trip are sold by different companies.
Waiting for the general sale on a marquee fixture. In an Ashes summer the pre-sale can clear the best days entirely.
Buying day five of a Test at a fast venue without reading the refund terms.
Treating a screenshot as a ticket.
Buying a concession ticket for somebody who does not hold the card themselves.
Buying from an unauthorised reseller because the price looked reasonable, which is the one mistake with no remedy at all.
Buying from overseas
A visitor buying from outside Australia meets three problems a local does not.
Payment. Some Australian ticketing platforms decline foreign cards, or trigger fraud holds on them. A card that works on the second attempt is common; a card that never works is also common. Have a second card available and tell your bank the charge is coming, rather than losing a place in a queue to a declined transaction.
Delivery. Mobile ticketing is now standard, which suits an overseas buyer — no posting, no collection window. But some platforms restrict transfer to accounts registered in Australia, so a ticket bought locally by a relative and passed on may not move as easily as expected.
Timing. On-sale times are Australian eastern time, and the general sale for a marquee day can clear in minutes. From the northern hemisphere that frequently falls in the middle of the night. Work out the local time in advance rather than on the morning.
What a ticket actually gets you
Worth knowing before you buy, because the terms differ from a football ticket in ways people discover at the gate.
- A Test ticket is for one day, not the match. A five-day ticket is five separate purchases.
- Re-entry is not guaranteed. Some grounds allow it on some days and some do not. Check for your specific fixture rather than assuming.
- Rain does not automatically mean a refund. The published policy is based on overs bowled, on a sliding scale, and it differs between Tests, one-day internationals and Big Bash matches.
- A reserved seat is reserved only within your own bay. General admission areas fill from the front, and arriving at lunch on a full day means sitting where you can.
- Bag rules and permitted items vary by venue and are enforced. Sealed water is generally allowed; glass, alcohol brought in, and large bags generally are not.
Which day to buy, by format
For a Test, day one is the event and days three and four are the cricket. Day one costs the most, sells first and is the most crowded; day three is cheap, comfortable and usually the point at which the match is being decided. Day five may not be played at all, which is why it is the cheapest ticket in Australian sport and the biggest gamble.
For a one-day international there is only one day, so the only question is where to sit.
For a Big Bash match, almost any night is available close to the date except a Melbourne or Sydney derby, and the family pricing makes it the cheapest way into a major ground.
Where this sits alongside the other options
Buying day tickets is one of three ways to watch cricket in Australia in person. The second is a state association or ground membership, which converts a large annual fee into unlimited access to the members' reserve and is a completely different financial calculation, covered in the guide to cricket membership versus general admission. The third is simply turning up to free domestic cricket.
Which fixtures exist to buy in the first place is decided years earlier by the Future Tours Programme and by venue agreements with state governments, explained in how Australia's home summer fixtures are decided.
If you would rather watch from home, the broadcast and streaming options are set out in the guide to how to watch cricket in Australia. For the fixture that dominates every summer's sale, see the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, and for the series that breaks every ticketing record, the Ashes.
More background on the competitions and grounds is collected in the cricket in Australia hub and the wider Australia section, and the venue guides for Perth Stadium and the other major grounds cover seating, transport and what each bay is actually like.