Officials 'Disappointed' As Major Cricket Centres Miss Out On Staging 2023 ODI World Cup Games: Report

The officials of major cricket centres, which have not been allocated an ODI World Cup matches, have expressed their disappointment at missing out on an opportunity to host games of the ICC event in October-November. The International Cricket Council (ICC) and host BCCI announced the World Cup schedule on Tuesday, finalising 10 venues for the event beginning October 5.

The established cricket centres that have missed out include Mohali, Indore, Rajkot, Ranchi and Nagpur. The chosen venues include Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Dharamsala, Delhi, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata. The metro cities usually get to host the World Cup games and apart from that, the matches are allocated zone wise and in some cases personal preferences come into play.

Though it is an ICC event, the world body tends to go with venues proposed by the local organising committee, which is the BCCI in this case.

Indore, which regularly gets to host international games and staged an ODI and Test earlier this year, is among the major centres to have missed out on a World Cup fixture.

Abhilash Khandekar, president of Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, expressed his disappointment.

"Indore hosted a World Cup game between Australia and New Zealand back in 1987. We feel bad that Indore has been left out. I don't know the compulsions of the BCCI. Indore has a rich cricketing history and therefore we expected it to be a venue of the World Cup," Khandekar told PTI.

Though the ICC doesn't put a limit on the number of venues, the lesser the venues the lesser the logistical challenges in organising an event which lasts for a month and a half.

In the 2019 ODI World Cup, 11 venues were used though teams did not need to take flights as it was being