The World Cup has been criticised for its mishandling of several aspects, from the delay in releasing the original schedule to the images of empty seats throughout the event. The BCCI, which is organising the World Cup entirely in India for the first time ever, announced the itinerary of the event just 100 days before the start but had to rework and make tweaks to the schedule, including changing the date of the big India-Pakistan clash, as local police failed to commit to providing security due to the dates clashing with festivals.

Less than two months before the World Cup began, the BCCI announced another schedule with nine fixtures rescheduled. The Hyderabad Police remained unhappy, however, with the date of the warm-up game between Pakistan and New Zealand, which was eventually played behind closed doors.

Ticketing fiascos remained another major talking point as the event closed in, with fans often expected to wait two hours for tickets. Often, their efforts went in vain, as the tickets were shown “sold out” when they were redirected to the booking page on BookMyShow, the official ticketing partner of the World Cup. Currently, tickets for every World Cup game are sold out on the site.

However, the crowds have been absent, with three of the six matches thus far being played in front of near-empty stadiums. Just an hour before the India-Australia clash on Sunday, BookMyShow revealed a number of tickets would be up for sale again, while 14,000 tickets were made available for the India-Pakistan game on Saturday 14 a week before the game, making fans wonder why the tickets were being made available at the last minute.

India faced Australia in Chennai on Sunday, but the stadium, usually jam-packed during the IPL, surprisingly failed to fill up to capacity.

Hafeez has blamed the officials, saying hosting a global event requires better management. “In these four days of the World Cup, I have seen poor management and poor planning from the organisers. The other thing, I have noticed is that the response of the crowd hasn’t been great.

“When you host a global tournament, you need to broaden your mindset and think globally. With a narrow mindset, you can never take big decisions.”