Border-Gavaskar Trophy Ticket Guide — Which Stand to Pick, City by City — Experiences

Indian Test tickets aren't sold the way Australian or English ones are. There's no simple General Admission versus Reserved split. Each ground sells tickets by named or lettered stand, prices step up from a very cheap general block to air-conditioned hospitality, and the premium hospitality tiers are usually allocated by the state cricket association rather than through the public booking platform. What a "cheap seat" actually gets you changes enormously from ground to ground.

Ticket tiers

General Admission

East Stand, West Stand (Nagpur) · C/D/E Lower Stands (Chennai) · North/South Stand (Ahmedabad) — 1-day

US$2–US$6

Single-day Test match ticket

Reserved Stand

North Stand, South Stand (Nagpur) · KMK Terrace (Chennai) · East/West Stand (Ahmedabad) — 1-day

US$12–US$37

Single-day Test match ticket

Premium Stand

MAC Stand (Chennai) · Club Pavilion (Ahmedabad) — 1-day

US$49–US$74

Single-day Test match ticket

Nagpur — the ground that sells out

VCA Stadium's last India-Australia Test sold out within 10-14 days of release, and it's the series opener, so treat release day as the real deadline. Tickets go through BookMyShow and the association's own channels closer to the match. For a full breakdown of the ground itself, see the Venue Map guide.

East Stand and West Stand are the general blocks, cheapest and least shaded. North Stand and South Stand sit a tier up — North houses the President's Room and commercial boxes, South backs onto the players' pavilion — and are the reserved stands worth paying the small step-up for. VCA doesn't run a separate premium or hospitality stand the way the other two grounds do; its top-tier access is allocated as private corporate boxes through the association, not sold as a seat tier.

Stand-by-stand: Chennai and Ahmedabad

Chepauk's lettered stands genuinely differ in atmosphere and shade, and Narendra Modi Stadium's 132,000 seats spread across stands with completely different price-to-view ratios. These two are where the wrong choice costs you most.

Full details →

Chennai Test — Hospitality & Ticket Tiers

A/B for the bowler's-eye view, I/J for the noise, the Anna Pavilion if the heat worries you.

Most fan guides to a cricket ground describe the stands as generically "close to the action" or "good value," without engaging with what actually differs between them. Chepauk's stands genuinely have different personalities, built up over a century of the ground evolving in sections rather than as one uniform bowl, and that's worth knowing before you buy rather than discovering on day one. Picking A/B for the bowler's-eye view, I/J for the crowd energy, or the Anna Pavilion for shelter from the heat are three different, equally valid ways to watch the same Test, and which one is right for you depends on what you actually want from five days at the ground.

Chepauk

Worth knowing

—If you're attending multiple days across a five-day Test, weigh the Anna Pavilion or AC boxes seriously even at the higher price — Chennai's January-February heat and humidity are a genuine endurance factor across a full day in open stands.
—I and J stands, closest to the Wallajah Road side, are where the ground's most vocal, most engaged crowd tends to concentrate — a good pick if you want the atmosphere Chepauk is known for, less good if you want a quiet, focused view of the cricket.

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Ahmedabad Test — Which Stand to Pick

Blocks N and E for value, Naroda End for tradition, a corporate box if the heat's a concern.

A ground this enormous doesn't have one defining atmosphere the way a smaller, more intimate stadium does, it has several different ones happening at once in different stands. That's worth treating as a real decision rather than an afterthought, especially for a Test that will very possibly decide how this series is remembered. Picking the wrong stand at Modi Stadium doesn't ruin the day, but picking the right one for what you actually want, value, comfort, or sightline, meaningfully changes how you experience the last Test of a series this significant.

Motera

Worth knowing

—If budget is the main constraint, Blocks N and E are specifically flagged as the best value-to-view ratio at this stadium — worth prioritizing over an equally-priced seat elsewhere in the ground.
—Corporate boxes here hold 25 people each and are genuinely air-conditioned with food included — a real consideration for a Test in late February/early March heat if a small group is willing to split the cost.

Where tickets actually get sold

General stands

BookMyShow (and Paytm Insider at Chennai) for the main sale, plus each state association's own channels: VCA in Nagpur, the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association in Chennai, the Gujarat Cricket Association in Ahmedabad. Sale dates for 2027 haven't been announced. At Chennai, past Tests also sold tickets over the counter at the TNCA office booth on Victoria Hostel Road, with a cap of two tickets per person in general sales.

Hospitality and corporate boxes

Allocated separately by the association at each ground, not through the public platform. Enquire directly rather than waiting for them to appear on BookMyShow. See the Luxury Guide for what each ground offers.

Check for a collection step

Some Indian Test bookings have required collecting a physical ticket at the ground before play. Read your booking confirmation for a collection instruction rather than assuming an e-ticket at the gate is enough.

Get the full event guide

All 12 planning guides

The stand-by-stand comparisons for Chennai and Ahmedabad, and Nagpur's sell-out pattern, are free above. Unlocking adds our specific stand pick at each of the three grounds, the reasoning behind the single day to prioritise at Nagpur, and which Ahmedabad stands look premium on the price list but aren't.

US$10Rises to US$15 after 2 January

Which stand should I pick for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy?

Which stand you sit in matters more than which tier you buy, and it's different at every ground

Chennai Test — Hospitality & Ticket Tiers

Ahmedabad Test — Which Stand to Pick