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

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.

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.

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