Why Is India Not Playing The First Match Of World Cup 2023 Despite Being The Host?

Why is India not playing the first match of World Cup 2023 despite being the host?

India will host the ODI World Cup this year, which will begin on October 5 and the final will be played on November 19.

Despite being the host, the Indian team will not play the opening match of the ODI World Cup 2023, on which many questions are being raised.

If one goes through the pages of the World Cup, one will find that there is no set pattern for the selection of teams in the opening matches of the ODI World Cup.

The inaugural match of the ODI World Cup 2023 will be played between defending champions England and runners-up New Zealand at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

This has happened before with Pakistan-Australia.

By the way, this is the third time that England and New Zealand will clash in the opening match of the ODI World Cup.

Earlier, in the inaugural matches of the 1983 and 1996 World Cups, there was a clash between these two teams.

However, one can understand that England being the defending champions got a chance to play the opening match.

But one could also argue that England’s opening match would have been against the hosts India.

There have been many times in World Cup history where the host country played the opening match while the defending champions did not get the chance.

Take Pakistan only. Pakistan won the title in the 1992 World Cup, but did not get to play the inaugural match in 1996. The same happened after Australia won the 2015 World Cup title.

Why is India not playing the first match of World Cup 2023: How was India’s program prepared?

Five matches of the Indian team will be played on Sunday, which is understandable. India will play against Pakistan, New Zealand, England, Australia and South Africa on five Sundays.

The Indian team will play against the first qualifier in Bengaluru on Saturday.

Then they will play matches against Afghanistan (Wednesday), Bangladesh (Thursday) and another qualifier (Thursday) in the middle of the week.