The schedule of the ODI World Cup to be held in India this year has been released. The ICC released the schedule on Tuesday. The tournament will begin with the England-New Zealand match on October 5 in Ahmedabad. At the same time, the Indian team will start its campaign against Australia on October 8 in Chennai. The first semi-final will be played in Mumbai on 15th November and the second semi-final will be played in Kolkata on 16th November. At the same time, the final to be held on November 19 will be played in Ahmedabad.

Along with this, it has also been decided that the Pakistan team will come to India. Earlier this team toured India for the last time in 2016 in the ICC T20 World Cup. However, the ICC has also given a big blow to Pakistan. ICC and BCCI have turned down the demand of the Pakistan Cricket Board to change the venue of two matches. The reluctance of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) started after seeing the draft schedule, but the ICC did not allow them to run.
PCB had demanded to change the venue of these two matches.


The PCB had demanded a change of venue for its matches against Australia and Afghanistan. Pakistan has to face Australia on October 20 at Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru and Afghanistan on October 23 at Chepauk, Chennai. Pakistan had mentioned in its letter of request after the draft schedule that conditions in Chennai would favor Afghanistan. So changing the venue will be beneficial for Pakistan.

Why PCB wanted to change the venue
Whereas, Chinnaswamy is known for runs and any score can be easily chased there. Pakistan was afraid of the fact that in either of the two matches, they would not enter the field as favorites. The ball spins a lot at Chepauk and Afghanistan has world-class spinners including Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rehman, and Noor Ahmed who can be a huge threat to Pakistan. For this reason, he had demanded to change the venue.


Pakistan wanted to swap the venue
Not only this, but another interesting thing is that Pakistan had also demanded to interchange the venues against Australia and Afghanistan. They wanted the venues to be swapped for these two matches, ie Pakistan played Australia at Chepauk and Afghanistan played at Chinnaswamy. However, the ICC and BCCI turned down the PCB's demand. Also, it was decided that Pakistan would have to play its matches at the designated venue only.

Pakistan's ODI World Cup schedule in 2023
The Pakistan team will start their campaign against the Qualifier-1 team on October 6. The qualifiers teams will be decided after the ongoing ODI World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe. Pakistan has to play two matches in Hyderabad, one in Ahmedabad, two in Bengaluru, two in Chennai, and two in Kolkata.

Date match ground
6 October Pakistan v Qualifier 1 Hyderabad
12 October Pakistan v Qualifier 2 Hyderabad
15 October India vs Pakistan Ahmedabad
20 October Australia v Pakistan Bengaluru
23 October Pakistan vs Afghanistan Chennai
27 October Pakistan v South Africa Chennai
31 October Pakistan v Bangladesh Kolkata
Nov 4 New Zealand vs Pakistan Bengaluru
12 November England v Pakistan Kolkata

(pc amarujala)