The much-anticipated ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup is all set to get underway on Today.

Defending champions England take on New Zealand in the opening day fixture at the world’s biggest cricket arena, the 130,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in a rematch of their epic showdown in the 2019 final at Lord’s.
This year, the 13th edition of the tournament is taking place in India who earlier hosted the event three times in 1987, 1996 and 2011 respectively.

However, this is the first time they are hosting an event of their own as they were the only co-hosts of the tournament alongside the other subcontinent cricket nations in the previous times.

Only England, who invented this game, hosted the competition more than India as the tournament was held there a total of five times.

The hosts will definitely start the tournament as favourites and they will be looking to emulate what a MS Dhoni-led side did back in 2011 when they last hosted the event alongside Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The records are also in India’s favour as since the 2011 World Cup, all host teams won the tournament in the last three editions of the meet.

Meanwhile, Jos Buttler’s men come into the 10-team tournament with the depth to live up to their billing as one of the title favourites.

They will also benefit from the return of star all-rounder Ben Stokes but the cricketer is likely to miss the opening fixture.

England’s formidable fast bowling line-up has Reece Topley, David Willey, Mark Wood and Chris Woakes alongside Stokes, who came out of one-day retirement ahead of the World Cup although he will play only as a batsman.

England have eight members from the squad that triumphed on home soil in the last World Cup in 2019 under Eoin Morgan.

“Four years ago is a long time. It was a fantastic match with New Zealand and we’ve had some fantastic games against them all the time in some ICC events and in the bilateral series that we play against them. They’re an excellent team. We expect a really tough match and we’re excited for the first match of the World Cup,” Buttler said in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday.

England won the 2019 final at Lord’s after the match with New Zealand ended in a tie.

The super over was also unable to separate the two sides so the match was decided by a better boundary-count rule that made England champions.

Meanwhile, perennial underdogs New Zealand will be without skipper Kane Williamson in the opening match due to the batsman’s troubled knee. Pacer Tim Southee will also miss the game as he is yet to recover fully from a recent injury which was followed by surgery.

The Kiwis are still in the hunt for a maiden World Cup title after making eight semifinal appearances in 12 editions.

“It’s extremely exciting. I think you look at a World Cup and it’s always, you know, it’s always on the horizon. It’s always years away. And then I guess to finally be here is really exciting,” interim skipper Tom Latham said on Wednesday.

“We’ve obviously had a nice build-up with a few practice games, like obviously everyone has, but yeah, to play the opening game here at an amazing stadium is pretty special. So it’s a unique one being played here in India, and it’s obviously a fantastic place to play cricket and really excited to get underway on Friday,” he added.

Meanwhile, ahead of the tournament opener, a Captain’s Day event was held on Wednesday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad where all participating teams’ captains were also present on the occasion.

Bangladesh, who are one of the 10 participating countries who qualified for the event after finishing third in the World Cup Super League, will begin their campaign against Afghanistan on Saturday in Dharamsala.