How the T20 World Cup scheduling is heavily favouring India

The coverage of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 is being centered around the highly anticipated clash between arch rivals India and Pakistan, scheduled to take place at the newly-built Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York on 9 June.

The match will see an abnormally early start (10.30 am local time) for a T20 game. 

The actual reason behind this is that this is a slot which is favourable for the Indian viewers. Most of the Indian Premier League (IPL) games start at 7.30 pm local time and all their World Cup matches will begin at 8 pm IST (Indian Standard Time).

Nowadays, the broadcasters have a big say in terms of scheduling of ICC tournaments but it seems like they have not quite thought about the local audience and also a big market like Australia as their fans have to stay up till 3 o'clock in the morning to catch a glimpse of their team's crucial encounter against eternal rivals England. 

The India matches are not the only ones having early starts. 28 of the World Cup's 55 matches will be played during the daytime. This is a significantly high number given that there have been only 26 day games across the last six T20 World Cups. 

The USA has been granted as the hosts of the T20 World Cup as the ICC is trying to build a market for cricket in the world's most developed country. 

But the purpose is not really being served because of the scheduling that is heavily catering to the Indian TV audience. More than half of the matches will start and end at daytime which means an average American resident has to take multiple leaves or leave his job to watch some cricketing action. Who will take the trouble?

The scheduling is not only favouring Indian fans heavily, but also the team on the field. 

The first Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean this century took place in 2007 where India crashed out of the first round. It was the lowest point of Indian cricket, according to icon Sachin Tendulkar, but the advertisers, sponsors and broadcasters incurred a far bigger loss. 

Three years later, they failed to reach the semi-final of the T20 World Cup happening in the Caribbean too.

From all the stakeholders' point of view, India can't afford another such slip-up and this time the scheduling, seeding and formatting are heavily in favour of India. 

On Saturday, India started their T20 World Cup campaign with a thumping win over Bangladesh in the official warm-up match in New York. The 2007 champions get to play their first three matches in the tournament on the same ground, a privilege that even the hosts West Indies and the USA do not have.

Among the top-10 teams, only South Africa apart from India get to play their first three matches at the same ground but they have to travel to St. Vincent which is in the Caribbean, something that India don't have to do. They will play their last group game at Lauderhill in Florida.

India are the only team that know that all of their matches will be played during daytime. The second semi-final of the tournament in Guyana, a day game, has been allotted to India should they qualify for the knockout stage.

This information is significant because India won't have to worry about the dew at any stage of the World Cup. The final at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown will also be a day game. 

India picked four frontline spinners - Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal - in the 15-man squad which left space for only three fast bowlers. 

But that was a conscious move since there is no dew threat to take the spinners out of the game.

"I don't want to go too much into detail on it, I'm sure opposition captains are listening to this," Indian captain Rohit Sharma said after the squad announcement. "I definitely wanted four spinners. We've played a lot of cricket there [Caribbean]. We know what the conditions are like. With morning starts at 10-10.30am, there's a little bit of technical aspect involved in this." 

The pre-tournament seeding is another thing that could take a lot of fun out of it. For example, no matter how well Pakistan play, they can't qualify for the Super Eight as A1 as it has already been allotted to India. 

England, New Zealand and South Africa are B1, C1 and D1 respectively while the second seedings have been given to Australia, West Indies and Sri Lanka. That means it is almost predetermined who is playing whom in the Super Eight, should no major upsets happen.

Because of the pre-seeding, India will most likely face Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka in the Super Eight and won't have to face England and South Africa at least before the final. Interestingly, India lost only two matches in the last T20 World Cup and those were against England and South Africa. 

India, by now, have got a decent understanding of the conditions in New York where they will play three of their four group matches and are staying at a hotel near the stadium.

On the other hand, members of the Sri Lanka team, set to play their T20 World Cup opener against South Africa in New York on Monday, have been lodged in a hotel situated approximately an hour and a half away from the practice ground which is adding to their travel fatigue.

According to a report published at NewsWire, Sri Lanka, Ireland and South Africa have filed complaints with the International Cricket Council (ICC) regarding the "subpar organisation and logistical planning". 

India inarguably are one of the best sides in the world, if not the best, and with odds very much in their favour, this is probably going to be India's World Cup to lose.