Will spectators be disadvantaged at World Cup in India?

After the heady excitement of England versus Australia at The Oval, Test cricket takes a back seat amidst a welter of shorter format cricket.

It is not until Dec. 14, when Australia host Pakistan in Perth, that another men’s Test match will be played.

Teams have turned their attentions to preparations for the 50 overs (one-day international) World Cup in India. Already, the tournament has attracted criticism on several fronts.

First was the delay in announcing the schedule until June 27 and subsequent revisions on Aug. 9. Tickets will go on sale on Aug. 25, only 40 days prior to the tournament’s opening match on Oct. 5. These are for matches which do not feature India. A six-phased process, between Aug. 25 and Sept. 15, is in place for India’s matches.

In comparison, tickets for the ODI World Cup in June 2019 in England went on sale in September 2018.

How has this situation arisen? No doubt, some of the explanation will be laid at the door of the long-running saga between Indian and Pakistani authorities over who was prepared to play where.

As discussed in a previous column, India has refused to travel to Pakistan for the 2023 Asia Cup, which begins on Aug. 31. To cater for the decision over half of the matches will be played in Sri Lanka.

Subsequently, Pakistan’s government and authorities took their time to confirm its team’s participation in the World Cup. This uncertainty will have affected decisions about some aspects of the final schedule and venues.

When the schedule was announced, local police at the venues of two of Pakistan’s matches, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, announced that they were unable to provide adequate levels of security because the dates coincided with festivals in those cities.

Consequently,