The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the schedule of the 2023 Cricket World Cup (CWC) to be held in India from October 5 to November 19. The 10-team event will kick off at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad with the defending champions England taking on New Zealand in the repeat of the final of the 2019 edition and will finish with the finale at the same venue.
Before the main event, as usual, the warm-up matches will take place a week before. The warm-up games will kick off on September 29 and are scheduled to be held till October 3. India will play two warm-up matches before the main draw of the tournament. Rohit Sharma's men will lock horns against England in the first warm-up on September 30th in Guwahati, followed by a practice match against Qualifier 1 on October 3 in Trivandrum.
The three venues finalised for the warm-ups are Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati. Hyderabad is also listed as the host in the main event, however, only three games will take place at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and none of them will feature India. Thiruvananthapuram hasn't got to host a single game in the main event as pointed out by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, but warm-up games have been given to the venue.
Mohali and Indore are the big misses from the 12 cities listed to host matches at the 13th edition of the Cricket World Cup. The hosts India will play each of their 9 matches at a different venue.
The format of the tournament remains the same as in 2019. All 10 teams will play each other once and four will advance to the semi-finals at the end of the group stage. The hosts India qualified alongside Australia, England, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, New Zealand and South Africa directly while the remaining two teams will be decided through the ongoing qualifiers.
Sri Lanka, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Oman and the Netherlands are still in the fray to make it to the main tournament. The top two teams after the Super Six will make it to the final and the summit clash will be decided, which team will be Qualifier 1 and which will be Qualifier 2.
