NEW DELHI: Book your date as India’s much-anticipated match against arch-rivals Pakistan will be played at the majestic Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) jointly announced the fixtures at a special event in Mumbai – just 100 days before the tournament began.
The tournament will kick off on October 5 in Ahmedabad, with the final match also scheduled to take place in the same city on November 19. The semi-finals will be held on November 15 and 16 in Mumbai and Kolkata, respectively.
The tournament will feature a total of 45 league matches and three knockout matches, which will be spread across ten venues in India.
The matches will be held in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Dharamsala, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Pune over a span of 46 days.
All matches from the semi-finals onward will have reserve days. Six matches will be day matches starting at 10.30 am, while the remaining fixtures will be day-night encounters commencing at 2 pm Indian time.
The ICC has confirmed that if India qualifies for the semi-finals, the match will be held in Mumbai unless they face arch-rivals Pakistan, in which case the game will take place in Kolkata.
The league phase will follow the same format as the 2019 World Cup, with ten teams facing each other once. The top four teams will then progress to the semi-finals.
India secured their spot in the tournament as the host nation. The other participating teams, including Afghanistan, Australia, England, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, and South Africa, earned their places through their performances in the 2020-2023 World Cup Super League.
The remaining two teams will be determined through the ongoing World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe, featuring Sri Lanka, West Indies, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, Scotland, UAE, USA, and Zimbabwe.
Before the official start of the tournament, teams will play warm-up matches scheduled to take place in Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati between September 29 and October 3.
India, one of the favourites in the tournament, will play their first match against Australia on October 8 in Chennai. Their subsequent matches will be against Afghanistan in Delhi on October 11, Pakistan in Ahmedabad on October 15, Bangladesh in Pune on October 19, New Zealand in Dharamsala on October 22, England in Lucknow on October 29, a qualifier in Mumbai on November 2, South Africa in Kolkata on November 5, and another qualifier in Bengaluru on November 11, which marks the penultimate day of the league phase.
During the league stage, India will play at nine of the ten venues, making them the team with the most travel in the tournament. Their warm-up games are scheduled against England in Guwahati on September 30 and a qualifier in Thiruvananthapuram on October 3.