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ICC, BCCI succumb to PCB’s Wankhede demand regarding 2023 World Cup but reject venue swap request
The World Cup schedule announcement reflected that BCCI and ICC accepted only one of PCB's request pertaining to venues of the World Cup matches.
While every other team will be playing their league games of the 2023 ODI World Cup across the 10 venues in India, Pakistan will be playing their nine group-stage matches in only five cities, as per the scheduled released by the ICC at an even in Mumbai in Tuesday. The highlight of the schedule announcement was definitely the blockbuster India-Pakistan match, but the schedule also reflected that BCCI and ICC accepted only one of PCB's request pertaining to venues of the World Cup matches.
Pakistan will begin their campaign against both the qualifiers in Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on October 6 and 12 before taking on India in the marquee game in Ahmedabad on October 15. They will then head to Bengaluru for the match against five-time champions Australia on October 20, followed by game against Afghanistan on October 23 and South Africa on October 27 in Chennai.
Pakistan will then travel east to Kolkata where they face Bangladesh on October 31, head back to Bengaluru for the New Zealand encounter on November 4 before ending their league stage against defending world champions England on November 12 in Kolkata.
ALSO READ: India's full schedule for ICC World Cup 2023: Pakistan match in Ahmedabad; all venues, dates and timings
What were PCB's requests?
When the draft schedule was revealed and sent to all the participating nations, PCB had made two requests. They had called for a venue swap for the Australia and Afghanistan game. They wanted to face the Aussies in Chennai and Afghanistan in Bengaluru, but the request was denied.
The other request that the Najam Sethi-led PCB had then made was their unwillingness to play at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai citing security reasons which was communicated to ICC officials when they had visited Lahore recently.
Hence, while ICC has scheduled a World Cup semi-final game in Mumbai, if Pakistan make it to the penultimate stage of the tournament, the venue will be changed to Kolkata's Eden Gardens.
