After months of fanfare over the upcoming Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Kolkata carnival, Shah Rukh Khan’s project hit a damp squib today on the opening day of the ticket-booking for the matches to be played at Eden Gardens.

On the first day of ticket sale, when the pool of tickets for the seven IPL matches of Kolkata was thrown open to the members of the CAB, the turnout turned out to be an embarrassment for the administration and Shah Rukh.

Only 239 members of the 31,000-strong member base of the CAB showed up at the CAB to place their bookings for paid tickets.

While the impending absence of Shoaib Akhtar is being seen as a huge impact on the turnout among the members for ticket-purchase, others argue that the compulsion imposed on the members to buy tickets, rather than get them for free, has further detracted many members from booking tickets. That apart, many of the members are eagerly waiting for Wednesday when the case comes up in the court on whether the CAB is authorised to take away the members’ right to get free tickets for the IPL matches.