Travelling fans left in the lurch with World Cup schedule still under wraps

On Tuesday, the ICC will announce the schedule for the 2023 Men's ODI World Cup. That is exactly 100 days from the start of the 10-team marquee event which will be played in India. It is an unprecedented delay in terms of the announcement of the schedule, which was prepared by the BCCI, the hosting board.

With just about three months before the World Cup gets underway on October 5, how do fans look at this extreme delay in the schedule coming out? We posed that and other concerning questions to three of the biggest tour operators in the game from around the world.

Chris Millard is the managing director of the Barmy Army. Rakesh Patel is the founder of the Bharat Army. Luke Gillian has been following the Australian men's team all around the world since 1995 and runs Australian Cricket Tours.

Rakesh Patel: For a travelling fan, if you're planning a holiday, you normally plan months in advance. Now, in this situation, it's difficult to do that because you don't know where the matches are and can't book any flights or hotels; you don't even know when your international flights to come into India will be.

We've tried to advise our members to not pre-empt and book anything based on speculation because the scheduling has been fluid over the last few months. We know so many fans who have already lost money because they thought certain matches would be at certain locations and booked hotels and flights and are now very concerned that those matches won't be played there. That has created a bit of a challenge for those fans because they're trying to get the best deals. Some of them don't buy refundable hotels because that's how you get the cheapest rates.

Our head office [in India] is in Ahmedabad, so we have quite a few hotels blocked in Ahmedabad through our travel program. We also know, recently, a lot of fans who had booked rooms at Hyatt and ITC [in Ahmedabad], their reservation has been cancelled. Because maybe the teams will be staying there, so they block out the entire hotel. Those are some of the other challenges, where the BCCI or ICC block them for the teams. The fans don't know which are the team hotels.

Chris Millard: The biggest challenge for us is to create packages that people want to go and visit the country. When you have to take into account the short time and logistics involved with the World Cup, it is very frustrating. England are the defending champions, and a lot of people are interested in going, but the more the time goes, ultimately less people will go because they will book different holidays. They may choose to go to visit the West Indies or come to India next year (2024) when England travel there to play the Test series.

The big problem for tour operators is the planning involved. We are now trying to get flights and hotel rooms when a lot of them might have been already taken, but also what you are looking for may not be available and you might have to search for alternatives.

Luke Gillian: Cost of travel to India and getting the necessary time off work. That's always been the crux of my issues over the last 25 years. We know that Australia will be playing India in 2027, but why do we need to wait four weeks before the tour to get a schedule? Why would people want to go because they wouldn't get the time off work. It is not just BCCI, several other boards wait until the last minute to announce the schedule - it's plain ignorance.

With regards to ticketing, the challenge for me as a licensed tour operator is: if I request say 100 tickets from ICC, and, I get them, but with the schedule being announced this close to the tournament, fans might not get time off work, so I am hamstrung.

As far as hotels go, the price can get out of control as soon as the schedule is released. I can give an example: recently (February-March) I was in India taking a tour group during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and secured a hotel in Indore for AUD 200 [per night]. Two days later that price had risen to AUD 400. The Test match had just been shifted at the last minute from Dharamsala to Indore. So from a price point, the closer the event, travelling becomes inaccessible for many.

In the past when you travelled for tournaments, how soon was the schedule out, and how did that help?

Millard: The 2022 T20 World Cup was a big success for England. The Barmy Army fans travelled in big numbers, but the schedule was in hand significantly earlier than three months. Australia, like India, is a big country and a lot of timing is involved.

Gillian: I have never taken a group for world events, but personally I have attended World Cups - the last one was the 2019 World Cup in England. The schedule was announced a year in advance (in 2018), which allowed me to marry that up with the 2019 Ashes. India are playing Australia in white-ball [cricket] immediately after the World Cup (5 T20Is), so if the BCCI could have announced the schedule well in advance, many [Australian] fans could have thought about travelling.

The biggest issue for a fan is time: if given more time to prepare, more people would travel to watch cricket around the world.

Who should take responsibility: BCCI, the host board, the ICC, or both?

Gillian: Ultimately the ICC. It's their event.

Patel: ICC can't tell us anything [even though the Bharat Army is one of their partners] until they official announce the schedule. From a general allocation perspective, for every ICC tournament over the past 10 years, cricket boards have always recognised the Bharat Army as a fan club and given us allocation for tickets. For example, during the WTC final [in June at the Oval], Surrey Cricket gave us two big blocks of tickets to sell to our members on general capacity. We also sold travel packages for fans travelling from abroad. We have that for every ICC tournament. For this tournament, we have the official travel program license from the ICC, but right now we don't have anything from BCCI. Which is a shame, right? Because we are an Indian fan group, you'd hope that in your home World Cup, you'd get an allocation of tickets.

Millard: I don't have the intricate details and who should be blamed. We have worked with ICC in the past for many tournaments and they know what the Barmy Army brings to the game. I am looking forward to a better relationship with BCCI moving forward because England are going to be in India a lot. The Barmy Army play a massive role in making all forms of cricket a spectacle for everyone to watch - whether you are at home or in the stands.

Fans are the biggest stakeholders, or at least should be. Are they being taken for granted?

Patel: The general feeling is, 'Why does this happen in India?' In 2011, there were last-minute changes which spoilt the experience. Many people were booked to Kolkata for India vs England but it was changed to Bangalore last-minute. In 2016 [T20 World Cup], we'd nearly booked for 400-450 people to go to Dharamsala for India vs Pakistan but the game was moved to Kolkata. Now in 2023, we're in a situation where we have issues around the tournament. The general feeling is: It doesn't happen anywhere else, so why does it happen in our country?

The tie-ups we have with travel companies, hotels etc don't allow us to factor in late cancellations or changes. Having to manage 1000 people and making late changes - some people want to change, some won't - that creates a lot of confusion.

We have known this tournament was happening in India for many, many years, but why have we got to a point that three months out we're still having to have a negotiation on where these matches are going to be taking place? Why hasn't this been sorted out months ago? Ultimately the stakeholders who suffer the most are the fans. There's a sense that the fans are the lowest common denominator in this situation, but we also know come tournament time the stadiums will be full [for the India games, certainly].

Millard: Unfortunately, as fans, we normally fall towards the bottom of the pecking order. And what we saw during Covid was how important fans are to cricket. When you are looking at the volume of finance that comes with TV rights deals, it pales into insignificance whether or not stadiums are sold out and whether people are travelling or not. But ultimately TV rights holders do want full stadiums so it is within their best interest to try and make it possible.

How can fans ensure this doesn't happen again?

Gillian: They can't. It will happen again.

Millard: Fans are still excited to travel, but undoubtedly the delay has caused some bother to people travelling. People have not directly dropped out, but some are saying they might look to travel to India next year during the Test series. If they have been waiting this long for the tournament schedule, they will continue to wait because it is a World Cup, because it is in India, because England are the world champions. I do think they will wait. We would expect bonkers numbers for the World Cup.

We have absolutely not started making any bookings. We have searched for accommodation with regards to planning to ensure making the trip as big and good as possible for our members. We have got ideas based on the rough schedule we have seen in the media.

Gillian: Yes, I am booked to fly in to India for the World Cup. What I don't know is if I am leading a tour group.

Which match are you most excited to watch?

Gillian Pakistan vs India. I want to be part of a world record 130,000 [crowd in Ahmedabad]

Millard England will be in the final. England vs India will be a fabulous experience.