World Cup 2023: India to Take on Pakistan in Highly anticipated Match on October 14; Full schedule

All 48 matches of the World Cup will be held across 10 venues as ODI cricket’s flagship tournament comes to India for the fourth time and the first since Team India’s glorious 2011 World Cup triumph at home. India will be playing their matches in Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, Dharamsala, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. Surprisingly enough, the famous Rajiv Gandhi Stadium that has a capacity if 55,000 and hosted 5 Tests, 7 ODIs and 3 T20Is, is the only historic international venue where India do not have a league match scheduled. Both semis will have a reserve day.

Eight of the 10 teams have already qualified for cricket’s grand extravaganza and the remaining two will be determined as the World Cup Qualifiers progress. Each team plays the other nine in a round robin format with the top four qualifying for the knockout stage and semi-finals. Besides, the warm-up matches will take place from September 29 to October 3. Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram in addition to Hyderabad will host the warm-up matches from 29 September to 3 October.

Rohit Sharma and Co. will begin their campaign against a rampaging Australian team on October 8 at Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium. Barring Pakistan and Australia, India will face stiff challenge from New Zealand in Dharamsala and England at Lucknow, the only two teams who handed them a defeat at the 2019 World Cup. Against England, India lost their only league match four years ago at Edgbaston before the BlackCaps eliminated them with an 18-run win in the semifinal at Manchester in a rain-marred match that stretched over 24 hours.

The revised announcement comes two weeks after the original dates were announced. Earlier, the World Cup schedule was supposed to be declared on the sidelines of the World Test Championship final before the noise surrounding it died as India and Australia played out a riveting Test at The Oval. It was reported that the reason behind its postponement was due to Pakistan’s request to move two of their matches – against Australia in Bengaluru on October 20 and Afghanistan in Chennai three days later. The BCCI allegedly turned down their request, as the schedule proves. The BCCI allegedly turned down their request, as the schedule proves.

In fact, the fixtures for the 2019 World Cup in England were declared way in advance – on April 18 – more than a year before the tournament began on May 30. This has led to an unusual lack of buzz around the tournament. For some reason, the ICC had kept the schedule under wraps with the BCCI maintaining the same stance.