Fans will pay the biggest price for the 2023 Cricket World Cup schedule

The Cricket World Cup is just over three months away, and the delay in announcing its full schedule has led to some hiccups.

The schedules of the previous two 50-over World Cups were published more than a year in advance, but this time the delay has been unprecedented and is causing confusion among stakeholders.

The tournament is scheduled to start in the first week of October in India and will last until mid-November, leaving little time to complete all the preparations and testing before the main event.

Why the delay?

One of the main reasons for the delay is the back-and-forth scheduling of major tournaments between India and Pakistan, mostly for political reasons.

Pakistan was scheduled to host the Asia Cup in August-September, but India refused to travel to the country due to security concerns. Pakistan, on the other hand, threatened not to travel to India for the World Cup if they were stripped of their Asia Cup rights.

The Asia Cup schedule was cleared this month after tense negotiations with Pakistan and Sri Lanka co-hosting the event, paving the way for the Pakistanis’ possible participation in the ODI World Cup.

Logistics

While the haphazard build-up and lack of preparation time for the World Cup have been dismayed, the fact that the tournament is being held in India is seen as a positive.

A tournament of this scale requires an equally large operation, but since India has enough experience of hosting multiple matches over long periods, read Indian Premier League, hosting the matches should not be a problem.

Also, the fact that local associations have a reputation for being efficient in getting the necessary administrative and regulatory approvals in time, the process to get things going before the first match is expected to be smooth.

A similar delay in, say, the West Indies would have been catastrophic, as the Caribbean is a mix of independent countries and any tournament there requires in-depth planning several months in advance.

Worry

The biggest problem is off the cricket field: fans traveling to India will certainly face the biggest hurdles, as international travel plans, visas and hotel accommodation in different cities at relatively short notice are never easy.

A delay means that customized travel packages that should have been booked by now have not yet been prepared.

Another big factor is the condition of the venues. At least five major World Cup venues are being renovated for the tournament, and fans have complained about the poor condition of older stadiums for years.

In addition, the outfields of the four centers Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Lucknow were recently renovated. That could become a potential problem because they wouldn’t have been tested enough.

A last-minute change of venues is seen as a worst-case scenario for the organizers, like in the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, when Pakistan asked to move their World Cup match from Dharamsala to Kolkata due to security concerns.

With very little time between now and the first ball of the 2023 World Cup, there is little room for error.

Updated: June 25, 2023 at 5:56 am