An overall $10 million pot has been announced for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 in India.

The winners of the Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 are set to receive $4 million of the $10 million total prize pool, ICC announced. The runners-up of the Final to be played on 19 November at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad will take home $2 million.

All 10 teams will play each other once in a round-robin format in the Group Stage, with the top four in the points table progressing to the semi-finals.

There’s prize money up for grabs for winning their Group Stage games as well, with teams getting $40,000 for every victory. At the end of the Group Stage, teams that fail to reach the knockouts will each get $100,000.

The prize money also sets the precedent for the upcoming ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2025, with ICC announcing equal sums for both men’s and women’s events during the Annual Conference held in Durban, South Africa in July 2023.

A total of 10 teams will be vying for the coveted World Cup trophy in the 13th edition of the marquee event. India qualified by virtue of being hosts while New Zealand, England, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa progressed from the Super League.

Sri Lanka and the Netherlands had to grind it out in the Qualifier to progress to the World Cup.

The biggest men’s event of the cricket calendar will span 48 matches across 10 venues, commencing on 5 October with the rematch of the Final of the previous edition between defending Champions England and New Zealand.

Before the start of the World Cup, each team will play two warm-up matches to get in the groove for the 46-day-long tournament.

Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the COVID-delayed 19th Asian Games in the Eastern city of Hangzhou during a spectacular and at times raucous ceremony on Saturday, which organizers hope will lift the mood in a nation struggling with an economic slump.

Spectators in the city’s 80,000-capacity stadium let out a huge roar as Xi was introduced and walked in to sit with visiting dignitaries including International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reported.

The Games, delayed a year due to China’s measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, will be the country’s biggest sporting event in over a decade in several metrics, with around 12,000 athletes from 45 nations competing in 40 sports.

After the Chinese flag was brought out, the first team out was Afghanistan, whose female athletes, based abroad due to sport for women being banned by the Taliban, walked together with their male counterparts.

Several teams including Chinese Taipei were vocally welcomed by the spectators, but none more than the home team, whose athletes are expected to dominate the medals table once again.

They also mark a stark contrast to the cheerless Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics which took place under China’s strict zero COVID conditions which lasted for nearly three years from January 2020 until late 2022.

“I feel excited, particularly as a Hangzhou local,” said a man surnamed Zhao on his way into the stadium. “It’s a great chance to show the world how nice our city is… it was also delayed by a year. But that gave us a chance to prepare even better.”

In an often spell-binding ceremony intended to burnish Hangzhou’s status as one of China’s centers of technology and creativity, dozens of balletic dancers hovered above a digitally-projected lake in the wake of a flotilla of sail-boards.

In a modern take on the traditional lighting of the cauldron, a huge, digitally animated torchbearer “ran” the length of the stadium before settling to loom above the actual torch-bearer, China’s Olympic champion swimmer Wang Shun.

In sync, the pair lit a huge, multi-pronged cauldron, prompting another bout of cheering and soon after, a digital firework display.

But many of those not lucky enough to get a ticket grumbled about disruption.

A sizable “traffic control area” around the city’s Olympic stadium was blocked off, at least one metro station was shut and other Games centers were closed and deliveries were disrupted on Saturday.

Some felt the security measures, always tight wherever Xi goes for a visit, were overdone.

“I think it shows they’re too nervous, right?”, said 45-year-old Hangzhou resident Li Jian. “I think we should be a little more confident.”

One local social media user was told due to safety rules surrounding the Games a pencil sharpener they had ordered could not be delivered. “How dangerous is the sharpener?,” the user wrote. “Will I be able to use it to kill foreign country leaders?”

Organizers have not disclosed spending on the Games, though the Hangzhou government has said it spent more than 200 billion yuan ($30 billion) in the five years through 2020 on transport infrastructure, stadiums, accommodation and other facilities.

Organizers hoped a high-tech opening ceremony on Saturday will help drum up excitement for the Games. Interest at home has been muted as the economy sputters and some question the cost of hosting the mega-event.

Dozens of smiling volunteers greeted arriving journalists in Hangzhou this week, with some expressing relief that the event was finally getting started.

The official slogan of the event, “Heart to Heart, @Future”, represents the goal of uniting the people and countries of Asia through these games, officials have said, but geopolitical tensions and rivalries threatened to overshadow that effort this week.

Xi called on the West to lift sanctions on Syria and offered Beijing’s help in rebuilding the war-shattered country on Friday during rare talks with the long-ostracized Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Also on Friday, India protested over a visa issue that affected three of its athletes at the games, leading India’s sports minister Anurag Thakur to cancel his trip.

Japan’s top government spokesperson said on Tuesday that Tokyo would do its utmost to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in China as the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea has chilled ties.

“We should promote peace through sports, adhere to the principle of goodwill towards neighbors and mutual benefit and… resist the cold war mentality and confrontation between camps,” Xi told dignitaries including Bach and Assad at a banquet before the ceremony on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua reported.

The torch relay for the Asian Games 2023 began its final stage in Hangzhou in China on Wednesday morning, marking the start of the final countdown towards the much-anticipated inauguration of this grand event.

Scheduled to open on Saturday, September 23, the 19th Asian Games is poised to become the largest edition to date. It will feature 12,500 athletes from 45 countries and regions, all vying for glory across 40 sports, 61 disciplines and 481 events.

During Wednesday’s relay, Olympic badminton champion Chen Yufei, who clinched the women’s singles crown at Tokyo 2020, held the honor of being the first torchbearer among the 203 individuals entrusted with this significant role, CGTN reported.

Notable figures such as accomplished gymnast Zou Jingyuan, who has garnered an impressive trio of world titles on the parallel bars, and tennis star Wu Yibing, the first male player from the Chinese mainland to secure an ATP Tour title in the Open Era, also graced the relay as distinguished bearers.

The flame has journeyed across 11 cities in Zhejiang Province, namely Huzhou, Jiaxing, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Zhoushan, Taizhou, Wenzhou, Lishui, Jinhua and Quzhou, before returning to Hangzhou on Wednesday to culminate its final leg. The relay has seen the participation of over 2,000 torchbearers, spanning a wide age range from 14 to 84, each contributing their unique spirit to this showpiece event.

In line with the Games’ theme of being “Green, Smart, Economical, Ethical,” the torch relay ingeniously integrates a digital component. The online relay, known as the “Digital Torchbearer,” was inaugurated after the Asian Games flame collection ceremony on June 15.

So far, an astounding number of over 100 million people have engaged in the Asian Games’ online torch relay, exemplifying the widespread enthusiasm and involvement surrounding this momentous occasion.