The 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is the 13th edition of the Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is being hosted by India, started on 5 October and scheduled to finish on 19 November 2023.
Ten national teams will participate: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Teams had to progress to the tournament via the 2023 Cricket World Cup qualification process, with the West Indies missing out for the first time in their history. England are the defending champions, having won the 2019 edition by defeating New Zealand in the final.
It will be the first men's Cricket World Cup to be hosted solely by India, who with other countries on the Indian subcontinent had co-hosted the event in 1987, 1996, and 2011. The tournament will take place in ten different stadiums. The first and second semi-finals will be held at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and Eden Gardens in Kolkata respectively, while the final will take place at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.
Background
Originally, the competition was to be played from 9 February to 26 March 2023.[1][2] In July 2020 it was announced that that the tournament would be moved to October and November as a result of the qualification schedule being disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3][4] The ICC released the tournament schedule on 27 June 2023.[5][6]
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had threatened to boycott the competition after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) refused to send a team to the 2023 Asia Cup scheduled in Pakistan.[7][8] This issue was resolved in June 2023 after the Asian Cricket Council announced that the competition would be hosted using a hybrid model proposed by the PCB, with nine of the 13 matches in the competition played in Sri Lanka.[9][10]
Qualification
Highlighted are the countries that will be participating in the 2023 Cricket World Cup.
As a result of the qualifying process, the competition will be the first not to include former winners West Indies, who failed to progress from the qualifying process after their defeat to Scotland. Full members Ireland and Zimbabwe also missed out on qualification, meaning three of the four full members who took part in the knock-out qualification stage did not qualify, with only Sri Lanka progressing.[14] The final qualification spot fell to an eliminator between associate members, Scotland and Netherlands.[15] The Netherlands won the eliminator and took the final spot in the finals stage of the competition.[16]
The International Cricket Council announced the winners trophy would tour the world 100 days before the commencement of the event. Photographs of the trophy were taken at each visited location.[17]
Ahead of the tournament, it was reported that an opening ceremony would take on 4 October 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, a day before the opening match between England and New Zealand at the same venue.[18] The organizers later cancelled the opening ceremony, and replaced it with a press conference featuring the ten team captains.[19]
ICC officially announced the mascots for the World Cup on August 19; following the announcement, there was also an event held in Gurgaon with two U-19 World Cup-winning captains, Shafali Verma and Yash Dhull. The mascots will be a male and female duo named "Tonk" and "Blaze" respectively from the fictional cricketing utopia called Crictoverse. They embody the principle of gender equality.[20][21]
The official theme song of the 2023 Cricket World Cup titled "Dil Jashn Bole" was released on 20 September. The song was composed by Pritam while lyrics were written by Shloke Lal and Saaveri Verma. The song was sung by Pritam, Nakash Aziz, Sreerama Chandra, Amit Mishra, Jonita Gandhi, Akasa Singh and S. P. Charan. The accompanying music video featured actor Ranveer Singh, many Indian Instagram reel makers and YouTubers.[22] However, the theme song was subject to backlash.[23]
The BCCI has provided funding for renovations and refurbishments at stadiums. Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium received a new grass surface, drainage system, seating, and hospitality boxes. Wankhede Stadium had upgrades to the outfield, floodlights, corporate boxes, and toilets. M. A. Chidambaram Stadium installed new floodlights and relaid two wickets.[24]
With the Autumn scheduling of this World Cup, the ICC instituted protocols for reducing the impact of moisture—including dew and rain—on pitch conditions, so that they do not give the team batting second an advantage (as had frequently occurred in the 2021 Men's T20 World Cup). These include using a specific wetting agent, and the boundary set around 70 m (77 yards) with more grass on the pitch to encourage seam bowling over spin bowling.[25]
All teams were asked to finalise their 15-player squads prior to 28 September, with any replacements after this date requiring approval from the ICC.[35] All squads were announced by 26 September 2023.[36] The oldest player of the tournament was Dutch player Wesley Barresi, who was 39 years old, while the youngest was Afghan spinner Noor Ahmad, who was 18.
On 8 September 2023, the ICC named 20 match officials for the tournament.[37]
On 25 September 2023, ICC published the list of umpires for match-wise appointments.[38]
The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that the winner of the World Cup will receive a prize money of US$4 million and the runner-up will get $2 million. Losing semifinalists will each receive $800,000 each.[39] This is exactly the same as the prize money at the 2019 event. The total prize money allocated for the tournament is $10 million. Each team will receive money based on their performance in the tournament as follows:[40]
India's warm-up fixtures were announced on 27 June. The complete warm-up fixtures were announced on 23 August.[41] The matches were broadcast live on television.[42][43]
The ICC announced the World Cup schedule on 27 June 2023 at an event in Mumbai with a countdown of 100 days to the opening match of the World Cup on 5 October. The group stage will begin with the match between the finalists of the 2019 Cricket World Cup, New Zealand and England, at Narendra Modi Stadium.[5] On 9 August 2023, nine fixtures, including the match between India and Pakistan, were rescheduled by the ICC.[44]
The ICC has stated that if Pakistan qualify for the semi-finals, they will play at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. If India qualifies for the semi-finals, they will play at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai unless India's opponent is Pakistan (the match will be held at Eden Gardens in Kolkata in this case). All knockout games will have a reserve day.[46]
Star Sports Network India is the official broadcaster of the 2023 Cricket World Cup. The tournament is scheduled to air on Star Sports and OTT platformDisney+ Hotstar in India, with the latter set to stream the World Cup for free on mobile devices, in both horizontal and vertical video formats. It will be the first time that the tournament will be broadcast in vertical format; they are set to use dedicated vertically oriented cameras to create the feed, as well as using vertical graphics and "bespoke production enhancements" to enable vertical viewing.[47][48]
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