ODI World Cup: India v/s Pakistan on Oct 15

New Delhi: India is all set to launch its One Day International World Cup campaign against Australia, in Chennai on October 8. The most anticipated match between India and Pakistan is to be held a week later in Ahmedabad, according to BCCI’s draft schedule for the tournament.

The 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup will be the 13th edition of the Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament, contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It is scheduled to be hosted by India in October and November 2023.

“The BCCI shared the draft schedule with the ICC, which then sent it to the participating countries for feedback before a final schedule is put out early next week,” ESPNCricinfo reported on Monday.

As per the initial draft, the tournament will begin on October 5 with reigning champions England taking on last edition’s runner-up side New Zealand in Ahmedabad, which will also host the final on November 19.

The draft schedule does not mention the venues for the semi-finals, which are likely to be played on November 15 and 16.

Originally, the tournament was scheduled to be played from 9 February to 26 March 2023, but in July 2020 it was announced that the tournament would be delayed to an October–November window following the disruption of the qualification schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

India, who last won the ODI World Cup in 2011 at home, will host the tournament and will play their league phase matches across nine cities, including, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru. They will take on Pakistan on October 15. Pakistan, meanwhile, will play their league matches across five cities.

“Pakistan are slotted to meet the two teams progressing from the Qualifier on October 6 and 12 in Hyderabad, and then Australia in Bengaluru (October 20), Afghanistan (October 23) and South Africa (October 27) in Chennai, Bangladesh in Kolkata (October 31), New Zealand in Bengaluru (November 5, day match) and England in Kolkata (November 12),” the report read.

Australia’s match against Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand in Dharamsala on October 29 and against England in Ahmedabad on November 4 are some of the other big fixtures.

A total of 10 teams will participate in the tournament. Out of these, eight teams have already been decided and while two other teams will qualify for the main tournament via the qualifiers.

With a little over four months left for the marquee event to begin, there has been an unprecedented delay in releasing the schedule. The schedule of the last two editions of the tournament — 2015 and 2019 — was finalised over a year in advance.

India’s tentative schedule:

India vs Australia, Oct 8, Chennai

India vs Afghanistan, Oct 11, Delhi

India vs Pakistan, Oct 15, Ahmedabad

India vs Bangladesh, Oct 19, Pune

India vs New Zealand, Oct 22, Dharamsala

India vs England, Oct 29, Lucknow

India vs Qualifier, Nov 2, Mumbai

India vs South Aafrica, Nov 5, Kolkata

India vs Qualifier, Nov 11, Bengaluru.

With inputs from PTI