Indoor Cricket World Cup gets underway today

Officials of the WICF and CICA posing with the Indoor Cricket World Cup. From left: Manorie Kodituwakku, head of women’s cricket Sri Lanka, Manish Kishore, Managing Director U Pro, Tony Watkins, President of WICF, Asela Pathirana, head coach of Sri Lanka and Hiran de Mel, head of operations CICA (Picture by Samantha Perera)

By M. Shamil Amit

All arrangements have been finalized by the World Indoor Cricket Federation (WICF) and the Ceylon Indoor Cricket Association (CICA) to conduct the 12th Indoor Cricket World Cup scheduled to get underway from today at two venues in Sri Lanka, the Austasia Sports Complex and the newly built U Pro Arena in Thalawathugoda.

The event, officially supported with the blessings of the Ministry of Tourism, is scheduled to end on October 4 and will have the participation of 31 teams in both the men’s and women’s categories.

The nine countries battling for honors are defending champions Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, England, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, USA and host Sri Lanka. The event will be played in four categories: Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Under 22 Boys and Under 22 Girls.

The defending champions Australia along with New Zealand, England and the United Arab Emirates and host Sri Lanka will be fielding four teams each while India and South Africa will have three teams with Singapore two and USA one.

The organizers CICA are expecting over 1000 inclusive of players, officials and spectators of the respective teams to be part of the event. Apart from being a major sporting event it will also serve as promoting sports tourism due to the fact that the island is witnessing an upward trend in tourist arrivals.

This will be the third major event conducted by CICA over the past year following the England, Asia Cup and the Masters World Series and this will be the second time that the CICA will be conducting the Indoor World with the last being way back in the year 2004.

The inaugural Indoor Cricket World Cup was held in 1995 hosted by England while Australia has hosted it in 1999, 2009 and 2022 when it was last held at Brisbane.

New Zealand (2002/2014), England (1995/2007) and South Africa (2000/2011)) have hosted the event with Sri Lanka (2004) and UAE (2017) one each.

In the men’s category Australia have won all the titles since its inception with New Zealand having been runners up eight times while South Africa won it twice and Sri Lanka once when it was held in Colombo. 

In the women’s category too Australia have been successful since it began in 1988 with South Africa ended up as the second best on seven occasions and New Zealand winning the event three times.

The opening ceremony is scheduled to be held from 9.00 am to 11/00 am at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel. The championship will start with the first round matches scheduled to be played tomorrow from 8.30 am at both venues. 

The two semifinals are slotted to be played on October 4 at 9.00 am and 10.15 pm and the finals scheduled to be played from 8.30 pm which will be followed by the awards ceremony in the evening at the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel from 7.00 pm.