The Opening Ceremony of the Cricket World Cup 2019 took place on 29 May 2019, at The Mall in central London.
[1] The ICC promised that the opening ceremony would be the ‘most celebrated start to a Cricket World Cup ever’.
Cricket journalist Andy Bull estimated that "there cannot have been many more than 400" fans actually present, which he ascribed in part to heavy rain.
The participants were: Afghanistan's Mirwais Ashraf and singer songwriter Aryana Sayeed, Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene and athlete Damayanthi Dharsha, West Indies' Viv Richards and Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake, Bangladesh's Abdur Razaak and actress Jaya Ahsan, Pakistan's Azhar Ali and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, Australia's Brett Lee and former tennis player Pat Cash, New Zealand's James Franklin and former Rugby player Sean Fitzpatrick, South Africa's Jacques Kallis and former footballer Steven Pienaar, India's Anil Kumble and actor-director Farhan Akhtar, and England's Kevin Pietersen and TV personality Chris Hughes.
[7] The hour-long show closed with a live performance of the official tournament song, "Stand By", by Loryn and Rudimental.