ODI World Cup 2023: Virat Kohli opens up on how special 'home' World Cup will be for India (WATCH)
India's batting mainstay Virat Kohli will hope to score big when the country hosts the ODI World Cup 2023 in October-November this year. Ahead of the showpiece event, King Kohli opens up about how special a home World Cup will be for India and its fans.
Follow12 years after India lifted the ODI World Cup in front of a resounding Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the Men in Blue will be raring to go when this year's tournament takes place in the country from October 5 to November 19. Under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India won its second World Cup in 2011 and reached the final four stage in the next two editions – 2015 and 2019. Will India lift their third title this year?
India's batting mainstay Virat Kohli, who was part of the 2011 World Cup-winning team, is all set for his second home World Cup and opened up about the emotion of the game in the country and among Indian cricket fans worldwide.Â
"Amazing. I've played one already, but I was 23 at that time and probably have an idea of the expectations on the senior players. But now, being a senior myself, I can understand what they went through and how special it is to play a home World Cup and how excited people are going to be. So, it's an experience that everyone wants to have in their career and I'm getting to do it twice. So, I'm really, really happy," said Virat Kohli in an interview with ICC.
"Personally, I am looking forward to playing in Mumbai. Fond memories of the finals in 2011 and it would be great to experience that atmosphere again," Kohli added.
On Tuesday, the ICC announced that the world's largest cricket stadium, Narendra Modi Stadium, will play host to the big-ticket World Cup group match between India and Pakistan on October 15 and the gargantuan venue in Ahmedabad will also stage the grand finale on November 19.Â
The tournament will begin on October 5 with a clash between defending champions England and runners-up New Zealand at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, which is the largest in the world with a seating capacity of 1,32,000 spectators -- 32,000 more than the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
According to the schedule, the big event's two semifinal matches will be held on November 15 and 16, respectively, at Kolkata's Eden Gardens and Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium, both of which are renowned locations with illustrious histories.
The Wankhede hosted the final of the 2011 World Cup, in which a Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led India beat Sri Lanka to end a 28-year-old title drought, while the Eden Gardens played host to the summit showdown between Australia and England in the 1987 edition, in which the former prevailed.
The ICC announced that hosts India will kick off their campaign with an exciting match against Australia on October 8 in Chennai, marking the start of the 100-day countdown to the ODI championship. This will be the first World Cup to visit northeast India, with Guwahati one of the 12 locations chosen to host the matches, including the warm-up games.
The matches during the tournament would be played at 10 different locations: Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Dharamsala, Delhi, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
Talking about what cricket means to Indians, Virat Kohli expressed honour for playing for the country and spoke at length about the game's free-flowing spirit among fans.
"Cricket blends perfectly into the fabric of our culture. That is precisely why you see a lot of emotion and passion when it comes to Indian cricket. It's because people live the game back home. At the end of the day we are going there to do our job, but it's a lot more than that when you start growing up and start playing the game. It's purely down to the fact that there are so many people back home who love the game. That amount of energy invested into one thing obviously grows the importance to that particular thing can hold. Even for us as cricketers, we value it so much because there's so much competition we go through - from young age groups to make our way up to the top. So, we are absolutely committed to do everything for the game till the time we play the game," Kohli said.
"It's the way the game is looked at back home. It's literally part of people's lives. Everyone knows the game inside out. They've played at some stage while growing up. It's the biggest sport we have back home. So that much interest and that much influence of people on one particular sport makes it so special. Literally makes it a part of Indian culture and that's why it seems to special and significant whenever you see India play anywhere in the world. People come and watch with so much keeness and interest, it's because it makes them wake up in the moring and go watch a game played. It's not forced. It's very natural, free flowing feeling that they have towards watching us play. We are just glad that we are getting to do this for us as a team, for the fans. It's an honour to play for India," Virat Kohli concluded.
