- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
The 2023 cricket World Cup will kick off on October 5 and continue till November 19 when the final will be played, according to a report on ESPNcricinfo.
The report also said that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has shortlisted around 12 venues for the marquee tournament with the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat hosting the final.
The other venues are Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Dharamshala, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Guwahati, Indore, Lucknow, Mumbai and Rajkot.
The competition will feature 48 matches involving 10 teams.
It was also learnt that the Indian cricket board will announce two to three more venues for warm-up matches ahead of the tournament.
While fixtures for world cups are generally unveiled a year in advance, it has not been the case for the 2023 World Cup as the International Cricket Council is still in the process of understanding the situation over granting visas to cricketers from Pakistan and the tax exemptions on offer from the Indian government.
The Indian and Pakistani cricket board have been at loggerheads in recent times over sending their respective teams to the other country since the two nations do not share a smooth relation off the ground. While India has expressed reservations over sending the team to Pakistan for the Asia Cup in September, the Pakistani board has warned that it would not send its national team for the world cup in India in that case.
The BCCI has said that visas of Pakistan cricketers will be cleared by the Indian government.
Again, as part of an agreement signed by the BCCI and ICC, tax exemption was promised for three tournaments between 2016 and 2023. The report said the Indian board was “obligated” to help the ICC (besides other commercial entities involved with the tournament) with tax waivers.
This is will be the fourth time that India will be hosting the cricket world cup. It co-hosted the tournament with Pakistan in 1987 when Australia lifted the trophy; with Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 1996 when Sri Lanka were the champions and with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in 2011 when they themselves won the crown. This time, India is hosting it alone.
