World Cup 2023 got underway at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad on Thursday, October 5, 2023, with defending champions England taking on New Zealand. But it wasn't the start the organisers would have hoped for.

As the 2019 World Cup winner and runner-up faced off in an engaging cricket encounter, what stood out were the empty seats at the game. A World Cup opener at the world's largest cricket ground with two cricketing power houses facing off should have been enough to fill the stands.

Mike Atherton, commenting on Star Sports, felt India should have opened the competition as it had done in 2011. Had India had opened their campaign on the first day of the tournament, the stadium would have been packed to the rafters and World Cup 2023 would well have been on the way.

The 134,000 capacity stadium wore a deserted look and the television cameras caught BCCI Secretary Jay A Shah looking rather perplexed with the poor turnout.

When India played Australia at the Modi stadium earlier this year, the man after whom the ground is named was present on day one. The arena was then packed with rumours of local BJP units picking up large chunk of tickets.

Jay's dad is the Lok Sabha MP from neighbouring Gandhinagar, surely some crowd management could have been resorted to save the BCCI the embarrassment of empty stands at the first game of World Cup 2023. Unthinkable in cricket crazy India!

• World Cup 2023

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