After a long wait, the schedule for the 2023 World Cup was finally announced by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Tuesday, June 27 in Mumbai. The 48-match tournament will be held across 10 different cities from October 5 to November 19, with the first and the final match to take place at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium.
The host nation India is set to play all their nine matches at a different venue except for Hyderabad, which will not host the Men in Blue. Team India will open their World Cup campaign in Chennai against the five-time champions Australia on October 8, while their final group stage game will be against a qualifying team at Bengaluru's M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on November 11. The high-octane clash against Pakistan will be at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, October 15 while the Men in Blue will host the defending champions England in Lucknow on October 29.
The ten venues include all the marquee cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bengaluru, Dharamsala and Lucknow. Mohali, which hosted the 2011 World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan and the memorable clash against Australia in the 2016 T20 World Cup is the unfortunate venue to miss out this year with the likes of Indore, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram also not getting the games. However, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram are scheduled to host the warm-up matches along with Hyderabad, where India will not play a single game in the main tournament.
The group stage ends on November 12 with England playing Pakistan in Kolkata and Australia facing off Bangladesh in Pune. The two semi-finals will be held at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday, November 15 and at Kolkata's Eden Gardens on Thursday, November 16. Ahmedabad as expected will host the tournament finale on Sunday, November 19.
