Kolkata, April 24
India will open their 2019 World Cup campaign against South Africa on June 5 and square off against archrivals Pakistan on June 16, said a senior BCCI official on Tuesday.
The World Cup will be held in the UK from May 30 to July 14. India will play their first match on June 5 as BCCI will have to maintain a mandatory 15-day gap between the IPL final and any international assignment as per the Lodha Committee recommendations.
The matter was discussed during the ICC Chief Executives Meeting here on Tuesday. “IPL will be played between March 29 and May 19. But we need to maintain a 15-day gap and World Cup starts on May 30. Therefore, we could have only played on (or after) June 5. Earlier, we were scheduled to start on June 2 but we couldn’t have played on that day,” the official said. The clash against Pakistan will take place on June 16 in Manchester. India have never lost to Pakistan in a World Cup.
Interestingly, ICC, in their recent marquee events, has started with an Indo-Pak fixture, which is almost always a sell-out. It happened in the 2015 World Cup in Australia (at Adelaide) and the 2017 Champions Trophy in UK (in Birmingham).
Other decisions that were formalised included the FTP for the next five-year cycle from 2019-23. “As we had decided, India will play a maximum of 309 days of international cricket in this cycle across formats, a reduction of 92 days from the earlier cycle. However, the number of home Test matches will increase from 15 to 19. All these Tests will be part of the World Test Championship,” he added.
No to Day-Night Test
It was also confirmed that India will not play any Day-Night Test match for now as it’s not part of the World Test Championship. — PTI
IMPORTANT DATES
- The 2019 World Cup will be held in the UK from May 30 to July 14
- India will open their 2019 World Cup campaign against South Africa on June 5
- India take on Pakistan in Manchester on June 16
- A total of 45 matches will be played with each team playing a total of nine matches. The top four teams from the group will then progress to the knockout stage
- The knockout stage will see two semifinals with the winners of each progressing to the final at Lord's Cricket Ground
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