Fans to pay biggest price for Cricket World Cup 2023 schedule logjam

Tournament itinerary yet to be announced with little over three months to go until 50-over event in India

The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is set to host the final of the 2023 World Cup. Getty

The Cricket World Cup is a little over three months away and the delay in announcing its full schedule has resulted in some complications.

Schedules for the previous two 50-over World Cups were released more than a year in advance, but this time the delay has been unprecedented and is causing some consternation among stakeholders.

The tournament is set to begin in the first week of October in India and run until the middle of November, which leaves little time for all preparations to be completed and tested before the main event.

Why the delay?

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

Pakistan was set to host the Asia Cup in August-September but India refused to travel to the country over security reasons. Pakistan, in turn, threatened to not travel to India for the World Cup if the Asia Cup rights were taken away from them.

The Asia Cup schedule was cleared this month after tense negotiations, with Pakistan and Sri Lanka jointly hosting the event, which paved the way for Pakistan’s possible participation at the ODI World Cup.

Logistics

While there is dismay about the haphazard build-up to the World Cup and the lack of preparation time, the fact that the tournament is being held in India is seen as a positive.

A tournament of such scale requires an equally big operation but since India has enough experience of conducting multiple matches for long stretches – read the Indian Premier League – the hosting of matches should not be an issue.

Also, the fact that local associations have a reputation of being efficient in getting necessary government and regulatory clearances in time, the process of getting things moving ahead of the first match is expected to be smooth.

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

Concerns

The biggest issue is outside the cricket field: fans hoping to travel to India will certainly face the biggest hurdles as international travel plans, visas and hotel accommodations across various cities at relatively short notice are never easy.

The delay means tailor-made travel packages, that should have been booked by now, have yet to be drafted.

The other big factor is the state of the venues. At least five major World Cup venues are being refurbished for the tournament, with fans having complained about the dilapidated condition of the older stadiums for years.

Additionally, the outfield at four centres – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Lucknow – were recently relaid. That could become a potential issue as not enough testing would have taken place on them.

Any last-minute change of venues is being seen as the worst case scenario for organisers, like at the 2016 T20 World Cup in India when Pakistan requested their World Cup game to be shifted from Dharamsala to Kolkata due to security reasons.

With very little time left between now and the first ball of the 2023 World Cup, there is next to no room for error.