R Ashwin shuts down Pakistan's request to change venues for ODI World Cup with blunt reply

Why you're reading this: The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 is all set to be held in India and some of the world's best teams will battle against each other in the major ICC event. However, out of the ten teams, eight have already qualified for the main round whereas, ten teams are battling out for the last two positions in the Cricket World 2023 Qualifiers. 

3 things you need to know

• The Cricket World Cup 2023 will be held in India in October-November, 2023
• England are the current champions of the Men's ODI World Cup 2023
• The World Cup 2023 will return to India after a span of 12 years

Will Pakistan participate in the Cricket World Cup 2023? 

The Cricket World Cup 2023 schedule is yet to be announced as the International Cricket Council (ICC) is still awaiting the confirmation of PCB of their participation at the major ICC event. However, a few days back the PCB made a pretty unusual request to the ICC and the BCCI for the change in two of their World Cup venues. 

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A drafting schedule was sent to all the nations participating in the Cricket World 2023 by the ICC in which Pakistan is all set to play against Australia on October 20, 2023, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru and three days later against Afghanistan at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. PCB wants ICC and BCCI to swap the venues of these two games without providing any legitimate reason. As per reports, Pakistan wants to walk in as favourites in both games. 

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However, besides all the action Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has come up with his opinion on the issue. Ashwin opined that Given the nature of the reason, the request is unlikely to be considered by the ICC. He further stated that the venues were swapped during India vs Pakistan encounter in the 2016 T20 World Cup match. The match was scheduled to be held in Dharamshala but due to the security concerns raised by Pakistan, it was later shifted to Kolkata. Speaking on his YouTube channel Ashwin said,

Pakistan has mentioned in its request letter itself that the conditions in Chennai will be in favor of Afghanistan. Therefore, it would be to Pakistan's advantage to change the location. Therefore, I highly doubt that the ICC will heed this request. Maybe it can be shifted if Pakistan has given some valid security reasons. One more important thing. The interesting request from Pakistan to change location. Now the situation is that Pakistan is playing Australia in Bangalore and Afghanistan in Chennai. They want the venues to be swapped. For security reasons only, the ICC will consider these requests. India vs Pakistan in the 2016 T20 World Cup was scheduled to take place in Dharamsala but was shifted to Kolkata due to security reasons.

The Indian cricket team is expected to take on Pakistan at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad wherein more than one lakh people at one time will witness the high-profile encounter.