India's 2019 ICC World Cup opening game postponed by 2 days due to Lodha recommendations

Kolkata: India will open their 2019 World Cup campaign against South Africa on 5 June instead of 2 June as the BCCI will have to maintain a mandatory 15-day gap between Indian Premier League (IPL) final and international assignment as per the Lodha Committee recommendation.

The 2019 World Cup will be held in the UK from 30 May to 14 July.

The matter was discussed during the ICC Chief Executives Meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday.

“The 2019 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 as per 15 day gap we could have only played on June 5. Earlier, we were scheduled to start on June 2 but we couldn’t have played on that day,” a senior BCCI official present at the West Bengal capital told PTI on condition of anonymity.

“South Africa are our first opponents. The CEC agreed and the matter has been referred to the ICC board,” he further added.

Interestingly, ICC in their various marquee events have always started with an India-Pakistan fixture, which is a sureshot sell-out. It happened in the 2015 World Cup in Australia (at Adelaide) and 2017 Champions Trophy in UK (in Birmingham).

“This is the first time Indo-Pak match won’t be a starting affair. Since the format will be a round-robin affair (all teams playing each other like 1992),” the official added.

Among the 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 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.

It was also confirmed that India will not play any Day/Night Test match for now as it’s not a part of the World Test Championship.

“All matches in ICC World Test Championship are day matches played with red ball. If that’s the case, there is no point in playing pink ball Tests if it doesn’t help in preparation for World Test Championship,” he concluded.