Australia captain Pat Cummins is excited to take on hosts India, in their opening match of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 in Chennai on October 8.
The tournament will be held from October 5 to November 19.
The five-time World Champions will rely on their wealth of experience as they search for a sixth title against two-time winners India, who will be a challenging adversary at home.
Ten teams feature in what will be the biggest Cricket World Cup ever, across 10 venues, with the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad hosting the tournament opener and final.
The other venues are Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Dharamsala, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune. Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram join Hyderabad in hosting the practice matches.
Australia are the most successful team in the World Cup, having won the last of their five titles in 2015.
Cummins, who led his team to the World Test Championship title recently, says his team is pumped and will be ready to give their all in order to achieve success.
Cummins said, “Everyone in the cricketing world draws their attention and focus on a World Cup, so we can’t wait to be in the middle of it. The Aussie team has had some success over recent years in ODI and T20 cricket, so we’ll be pumped to be there.”
“You know there’s going to be big crowds, but no bigger than playing India at home in a World Cup game, so that’s going to be exciting for us. It will be a huge challenge, they’re a top-class team, but if you want to win a World Cup, you’re going to have to be better than everyone else, so why not take on India straight up,” he said.
“Winning a World Cup is huge. Luckily enough a few of us have won an ODI World Cup and a T20 World Cup, so there’s lots of confidence in the group and a lot of experience as well. It’s one of those career highlights where you’re lucky if you have one, let alone a few of them, so that’s going to be the aim for a lot of the guys. These are the kind of tournaments that at the end of your career, you look back on, so we’ll be there, pumped, and giving it everything,” Cummins said.
“It’s a bit of a different group, we all get on really well, so we’re excited. We’ll have a lot of fun when we get over there and we can’t wait to get there,” he added.
Eight teams have qualified for the 46-day event through the Cricket World Cup Super League while the final two spots will be taken by the finalists of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier taking place in Zimbabwe.
The tournament retains the round-robin format of last time with all teams playing against each other for a total of 45 league matches. There are six day matches in the tournament, which will start at 10h30 local time. All other matches, including the knockouts, will be day-night fixtures starting at 14h00.
The top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals to be played in Mumbai on November 15 and in Kolkata on November 16. The semi-finals and the final will have reserve days.
Australia’s schedule of World Cup matches (day-night matches unless indicated otherwise):
8 October – vs India, Chennai
13 October – vs South Africa, Lucknow
16 October – vs Qualifier 2, Lucknow
20 October – vs Pakistan, Bengaluru
25 October – vs Qualifier 1, Delhi
28 October – vs New Zealand, Dharmsala (day match)
04 November – vs England, Ahmedabad
07 November – vs Afghanistan, Mumbai
12 November – vs Bangladesh, Pune (day match).
