ICC AND BCCI REJECTED PAKISTAN’S REQUEST TO CHANGE SOME VENUES FOR THE WORLD CUP 2023 MATCHES
ICC AND BCCI REJECTED PAKISTAN’S REQUEST:
As per the latest reports, Pakistan Cricket Board has requested the top ICC officials that they want to swap some of their venues for the World Cup matches in India.
Indian Cricket Board has formally made a schedule for the matches of the ICC ODI Cricket World Cup 2023 and has sent it to the International Cricket Council as well, as the tentative schedule for the World Cup 2023 was released, Pakistan Cricket Board isn’t happy with some of their matches at specific grounds which will not suit Pakistan team and to make things easier for Pakistan team, PCB has requested ICC to swap their venues of Bengaluru and Chennai.
As per the tentative schedule, Pakistan Cricket Team will face Afghanistan in Chennai Stadium, and Australia in Chinnaswamy Stadium. Chennai is a spin-friendly pitch and will favor the Afghanistan team while Chinnaswamy is a batting-friendly pitch that will cause trouble to Pakistan against the mighty Aussies so, PCB wants this the other way around but according to the reports, ICC and BCCI have officially rejected this request from the Pakistan Board.
The request of the Pakistan Cricket Board to make Pakistan favorites in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 is officially rejected in a joint meeting by BCCI and ICC as they don’t consider this a very obvious reason to swap the venues in the World Cup.
‘’ Australia in Bengaluru and Afghanistan in Chennai are the two venues which we should look to get changed as much as possible. If we can switch these venues around, Afghanistan in Bengaluru and Australia in Chennai would be the best choice and would make us obvious favorites in the match ‘’, the note for the swap of venues.
PAKISTAN VS AFGHANISTAN 2023 WC VENUE:
PCB wants to change the venue of their match against Afghanistan because of the spin-friendly nature of the Chennai pitch and this will definitely help the spin attack of the Afghanistan team which is one of the best in the world. Pakistan doesn’t want any kind of risk in this match and that’s the reason they want to swap this venue with some other one which will at least not favor Afghan spinner as much as in Chennai.
PAKISTAN VS AUSTRALIA WC 23 VENUE:
Pakistan’s match against Australia at Chinnaswamy is another point of concern because of the batting-friendly behavior of the Chinnaswamy ground and as we all know Aussies have one of the best top orders in the world but if this match is moved to Chennai, Aussie top order will surely struggle to get going in the match against the likes of Shadab Khan, Usama Mir, Abrar Ahmed, and Muhammad Nawaz and Pakistan will be on top of Australia in this match.
PAKISTAN VS INDIA 2023 WC VENUE:
There were also some reservations from Pakistan Cricket Board on playing against India at the Ahmedabad Cricket Stadium, but BCCI didn’t change their stance on that one as well as they want India vs Pakistan at the World’s biggest stadium. Obviously, they would love to make this happen because this match will result in very big gate money and no one wants to lose any of that as well, and as per the last reports, PCB has also agreed to play against India at the proposed venue of Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium in the upcoming Cricket World Cup 2023.
PAKISTAN’S TENTATIVE WORLD CUP 2023 SCHEDULE:
OCTOBER 6 –
PAKISTAN VS QUALIFIER
VENUE: HYDERABAD
OCTOBER 12 –
PAKISTAN VS QUALIFIER
VENUE: HYDERABAD
OCTOBER 15 –
PAKISTAN VS INDIA
VENUE: AHMEDABAD
OCTOBER 20 –
PAKISTAN VS AUSTRALIA
VENUE: BENGALURU
OCTOBER 23 –
PAKISTAN VS AFGHANISTAN
VENUE: CHENNAI
OCTOBER 27 –
PAKISTAN VS SOUTH AFRICA
VENUE: CHENNAI
OCTOBER 31 –
PAKISTAN VS BANGLADESH
VENUE: KOLKATA
NOVEMBER 5 –
PAKISTAN VS NEWZEALAND
VENUE: BENGALURU
NOVEMBER 12 –
PAKISTAN VS ENGLAND
VENUE: KOLKATA
Even though it’s not good to request the swap of venues where you think pitches will favor you but it’s also the other way around as well because we can clearly see that these two venues will favor the opposition team like Afghanistan and Australia. So, it will be better if ICC and BCCI just look into this matter and don’t give anyone any extra leverage. To hold these matches in a neutral venue where no one is at the top would be a better option rather than just sticking to the stance that can lead to any controversy in the future.
- Although it’s not possible to swap the venues of World Cup matches at the request of a team just because they don’t feel comfortable playing at a particular ground, the venue swap is actually only possible when there are some security threats or some serious reasons that can force this change.
