Durham ponders cheaper ticket prices

Durham's chief executive, David Harker, believes that ticket prices may have to fall for future Test series, after his county managed to sell barely half of the seats available for Thursday's second Test against West Indies at the Riverside.

The presence of Durham's local hero, Graham Onions, who starred with a five-wicket haul on debut at Lord's last week, could yet persuade the fans to make a late appearance, but according to Harker, the revised projection of revenue for the match is only 60% of budget.

"Clearly, the tickets are not flying out of the door," Harker told PA Sport. "Over the course of the five days, we are looking at between 20 and 30,000. It's not a disaster by any means - we won't make a loss on this event. But you'd like to be beating budget rather than falling short, particularly in the current climate.''

Ticket prices currently range from £30-£35 up to £60, and though the Saturday of the match may still be a sell-out, only 3000 seats have been sold for the first day, despite England being on a high after their three-day victory at Lord's last week.

There are numerous reasons why the match could be less popular than previous fixtures at the ground - a glut of big series this summer with the Ashes and the World Twenty20 also being staged in England, as well as uncertainty surrounding England's opponents for this series, with West Indies only confirmed as replacements for Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe back in November.

"If the game isn't selling out, you have to wonder why that is,'' said Harker. "You have to look at the ticket price and wonder whether maybe we have reached the limit of that.

"They are set in conjunction with the ECB, and the challenge is that we have to bid for the games. That bid has the function of deciding the size of ticket price. If the game were to move to looking at lower-priced tickets - which I would certainly support - that has to be reflected in the bidding process as well."