Mohali didn’t get to host World Cup matches, Punjab Sports Minister furious, said politically motivated

The schedule of the World Cup 2023 was announced by the ICC and BCCI on 27 June. The tournament is about to start after exactly 100 days. 10 cities have been selected to host the mega event, which will see a total of 48 matches spread over 46 days. However, unlike the 2011 World Cup, not a single match will be played in Mohali this time. Twelve years ago in 2011, when India co-hosted the World Cup with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali hosted three matches.

 

The encounter between India and Pakistan, which was also the semi-final of the tournament, was played in Mohali. This time, Punjab Sports Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hair has condemned the program for not holding the match at the venue. He claimed that Mohali’s failure to host the World Cup matches this year was due to politics and he would take up the issue with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). He categorically stated that the exclusion of Mohali in Punjab from the list of host cities for the tournament was due to political interference. The Punjab government will take up the issue with the BCCI.

 

The World Cup matches will be held in Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Dharamsala, Delhi, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata. Apart from Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram, practice matches will be played in Hyderabad from September 29 to October 3. The much-hyped one-day World Cup match between India and Pakistan will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on October 15, while the final will be played at the world’s largest stadium on November 19. The first semi-final of the World Cup 2023 will be played on November 15 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the second on the next day at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. All the three knockout matches will be day-night matches.