ICC Cricket World Cup

The 13th edition of the Cricket World Cup, an ODI cricket tournament held every four years between men’s national teams and organized by the International Cricket Council (ICC), will take place in 2023. India is hosting the event, which got underway on October 5 and is expected to end on November 19, 2023.

The ten participating national teams are Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.

The West Indies missed out on the event for the first time in their history as teams had to advance through the 2023 Cricket World Cup qualification process. England won the 2019 competition after defeating New Zealand in the championship game.

India will be the first Asian country to host the men’s Cricket World Cup; before, the event was co-hosted by other nations in the Indian subcontinent in 1987, 1996, and 2011. Ten various locations will host the competition. The first and second semi-finals will be held at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and Eden Gardens in Kolkata, respectively, while the final will be held at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Background  information

The tournament had originally been planned to take place from 9 February to 26 March 2023. In July 2020, it became known that the tournament would be shifted to October and November due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of the qualification process. On June 27, 2023, the ICC made the tournament schedule public.

After the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) refused to send a team to the 2023 Asia Cup set for Pakistan, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) vowed to boycott the event. This matter ended in June 2023, when the Asian Cricket Council declared that the competition would be held using a hybrid hosting arrangement proposed by the PCB, with nine of the league’s 13 matches.

 Required Qualification

The World Cup will have 10 teams, much like the previous one. The new ICC Cricket World Cup Super League, a series of games played between 2020 and 2023, served as the primary pathway for qualification as opposed to the ODI rankings. The top eight teams from the Super League’s 13 teams automatically qualified for the World Cup, while fourth-placed hosts India already had a slot allocated. The top five rated associate sides and the bottom five teams from the Super League competed for the final two berths in the 2023 Cricket World Cup Qualifier in June and July 2023.

Due to the qualifying process, the competition was the first to be held without the involvement of past winners West Indies, who were unable to advance after losing to Scotland. Three of the four full members that competed in the knock-out qualification stage did not qualify, with only Sri Lanka moving on. Full members Ireland and Zimbabwe both failed to do so. A match between associate members Scotland and Netherlands earned the last qualifying berth. The Netherlands secured the final slot in the competition’s final round after winning the eliminator. 

Marketing strategies

One hundred days before the start of the competition, the International Cricket Council stated that the winner’s trophy would travel the globe. At each place, pictures of the trophy were taken.

It was announced prior to the competition that the opening ceremony would occur on October 4, 2023, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, one day before the first game will take place there. The opening ceremony was scrapped and replaced by a press conference with the ten team captains.

Following the ICC’s formal announcement of the World Cup mascots on August 19, two U-19 World Cup champion captains, Shafali Verma and Yash Dhull, participated in a ceremony in Gurgaon. The team’s symbols are a male and female pair from Crictoverse, a made-up cricketing utopia, who go by the names “Tonk” and “Blaze,” respectively. They represent the idea of gender equality.

On September 20, “Dil Jashn Bole,” the official theme song for the 2023 Cricket World Cup, was made available. The lyrics were written by Shloke Lal and Saaveri Verma, and Pritam created the music. Pritam, Nakash Aziz, Sreerama Chandra, Amit Mishra, Jonita Gandhi, Akasa Singh, and S. P. Charan all participated in the song’s delivery. The related music video included YouTubers and Instagram reel producers from India, including actor Ranveer Singh. The theme music, though, received criticism.

Performance Venues

The competition will be held in ten different stadiums in India. While the final will be organized in Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the first and second semi-finals will take place at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and Eden Gardens in Kolkata, respectively.

Stadium improvements and changes have been funded by the BCCI. The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium has improved its grass field, hospitality boxes, drainage system, and seating area. Upgrades to the outfield, floodlights, corporate boxes, and restrooms were all present at Wankhede Stadium. New floodlights have been put up at M. A. Two wickets at the Chidambaram Stadium were refurbished.

The ICC established rules that reduce the impact of moisture—including dew and rain—on pitch conditions in order to prevent situations like those that commonly occurred in the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup from occurring during this World Cup’s Autumn scheduling. Utilizing a certain wetting agent is one of them, as is setting the boundary at about 70 meters (77 yards) and adding more grass to the playing surface to favor seams hitting over spin bowling.