The International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) released the complete schedule of the 13th edition of the Men's Cricket World Cup which is set to be played in ten cities from October 5 onwards. Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram and a former Union Minister has expressed his disappointment with Kerala not being allocated any match in the main draw of the 2023 World Cup.
The tournament will be played across 12 venues, namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Cuttack, Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Raipur, and Visakhapatnam. However, Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, which boasts a state-of-the-art Sports Hub stadium that has hosted international matches in the past, was left out of the list.
Thiruvananthapuram will host only two warm-up matches before the main event begins with one of them featuring India against Qualifier 1 on October 3. The other warm-up matches will be held in Hyderabad and Guwahati. Tharoor took to Twitter to express his displeasure over the exclusion of Kerala from the World Cup fixtures.
"Disappointed to see that Thiruvananthapuram's Sports Hub, hailed by many as the best cricket stadium in India, is missing from the World Cup 2023 fixture list. Ahmedabad is becoming the new cricket capital of the country, but could a match or two not have been allotted to Kerala?" Tharoor tweeted.
The reason for Thrivunanthapuram not getting a game could be because the last game which was held at the Green Field Stadium had a poor audience turnout and sparked a row between ministers. The third ODI between India and Sri Lanka in January saw a half-empty stadium and former Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh questioned if the ODI format is dying after the game.
Tharoor is not the only politician who has raised objections over the World Cup venues as Punjab Sports Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer also slammed the BCCI for not picking Mohali as a host city. Hayer alleged that it was due to political interference and said that the Punjab government will raise this issue with the BCCI.
