World Cup 2023: ICC shoots down Mickey Arthur's 'bilateral series' complaint — 'There's always criticisms'

ICC feels that the ODI World Cup in India will emerge as an “outstanding” tournament despite criticism from various quarters. The International Cricket Council, however, also added that it is ready to review the criticism from Pakistan that their match against India at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad felt more like a “bilateral series” and not an ICC event. World Cup 2023:  News |  Schedule |  Results |  Points table After Paksitan’s seven-wicket loss to India, their eighth in ODI World Cups to Men in Blue in eight matches, team director Mickey Arthur said that lack of Paksitani fans at the stadium in Ahmedabad and familiar music in the ground, made it feel like a "BCCI event than ICC". Pakistan fans were missing from the match as India have not yet granted visas to them. “Look, I’d be lying if I said it did [not affect us],” Arthur said after Pakistan’s defeat. “It didn’t seem like an ICC event, to be brutally honest. It seemed like a bilateral series; like a BCCI event.” Pakistan coach Grand Bradburn also took a similar stand after the match. “We are really sad that our supporters aren’t here, they would love be here and I am sure Indian cricket fans would love our supporters here as well. It was certainly unusual in that way, no familiar music for us today. So it did not feel like a World Cup game, honestly. We didn’t expect anything else. We love the occasion and we are disappointed that we did not do justice to the occasion or justice to our many fans at home and globally,” he said.

ICC chairman Greg Barclay, however, has said that every major event faces such criticism and he is hopeful of World Cup 2023 being a huge success. “Every event that we have, there’s always criticisms from various quarters,” Barclay was quoted as saying by AFP. “Things that perhaps we’ll take away and try to work on, try to do better…so this event’s only [at] the start. Let’s see how the whole thing plays out and we’ll go away and we’ll review what could change, what we can do better, how we can improve World Cups and the general offering around cricket. “We will just take it as it plays out, get to the end of the event. I’m satisfied that it will still be an outstanding World Cup.”