India vs Pakistan: T20 World Cup 2024 will jointly be organized by America and West Indies Cricket, next year. The high-octane T20 WC 2024 match between India and Pakistan, tournament's biggest box office feature, might be played in USA instead of West Indies, USA Cricket President Atul Rai announced as per PTI. It is believed that the decision to host India vs Pakistan World Cup match in USA was taken keeping in mind the crowd support for both teams. Notably, ICC Men's T20 World Cup event will be first of its kind in the USA.
"Preferably it will be held in the USA considering that India's T20 games against West Indies in Florida were complete sell out," Rai told PTI in an interview.
"The ICC events team headed by Chris Tetley had travelled up and down back in May when they inspected a lot of grounds across various cities. Few weeks back (December), they again came back and narrowed their search," Rai added.
The marquee-event is aimed at raising the traction of cricket in North America where a sizeable Asian population resides and is passionate about the game.
"The ICC wants to give us at least 18 months time to get all the venues ready and functional for a global event. During the last inspection, they checked out the Oaklands Coliseum in San Francisco and a ground in Los Angeles (Woodley Cricket Field). They also looked at grounds in Dallas and Texas," said Rai.
The main bone of contention, however, will be the timings of the matches that will suit the Indian and Pakistani audience back home.
If the matches are beamed live in India late evening, it will be morning start which might not be great for a run fest which is expected in T20s.
"If matches are held in West Coast then they will probably start evening local time and aired early morning in India. If it's east coast then it could be evening India time and morning local time. ICC will have final call although they would take our inputs," said Rai.
(With PTI Inputs)