Cricket South Africa CEO Haroon Lorgat said that the Barmy Army "are bringing much more than just their thirst and their songs to the test cricket arena in South Africa over the next month -- an expected 10,000 visitors also provide a marked income boost for the sport," according to Mark Gleeson of REUTERS. Ticket sales for the opening days of the first two tests in Durban and Cape Town "are way up on past averages and approaching the prospect of a rare sell-out crowd." Lorgat said, "It's one of our more lucrative tours. It does rate among the top and if we could sell out the test matches we'd be very excited." Figures provided by CSA show Saturday's opening day of the first test in Durban "is almost sold out for the first time in years and, with enhanced interest for the other four days, sales are just short of 48,000." Newlands in Cape Town, with a capacity of 18,000, "is sold out for the opening two days of the New Year’s test and just a few thousand short of a sell-out for the following three days," totaling more than 81,000 tickets. England’s traveling cricket fans over the decades "have built up a reputation for their good-natured, if somewhat monotonous chanting, usually gaining in volume later in the day as enthusiastic consumption of beer begins to take effect" (REUTERS, 12/23).
