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The 2011 ICC Cricket World
Cup will be the tenth
Cricket World Cup and will be hosted by three
South Asian
Test cricket playing countries:
India,
Sri Lanka and
Bangladesh. It will be Bangladesh's first time
co-hosting a Cricket World Cup. The World Cup will use
cricket's
One Day International format, with fourteen national
cricket teams scheduled[1]
to compete. The World Cup will take place between February
and early April 2011, with the first match to be played on
19 February 2011 with co-hosts
India and
Bangladesh facing off at the
Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in
Mirpur, Dhaka.[2]
The opening ceremony will be held on 17 February 2011, two
days before the start of the tournament,[3]
with the final on 2 April 2011 at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.
The World Cup was also supposed to be co-hosted by Pakistan,
but in the wake of the
2009 attack on the
Sri Lanka national cricket team in
Lahore, the
International Cricket Council (ICC) decided to strip
Pakistan of its hosting rights.[4]
The headquarters of the organising committee were originally
situated in Lahore, but have now been shifted to Mumbai.[5]
Pakistan was supposed to hold 14 matches, including one
semi-final.[6]
Eight of Pakistan's matches have been awarded to India, four
to Sri Lanka and two to Bangladesh.[7]
Host selection
Bids
The ICC originally announced its decision which countries would host
the 2011 World Cup on 30 April 2006. Australia and New Zealand also bid
for the tournament, and a successful Australasian bid for the 2011 World Cup would have seen a 50-50 split in games, with the final still up for negotiation. The Trans–Tasman bid, Beyond Boundaries, was the only bid for 2011 delivered to ICC headquarters in Dubai
ahead of the 1 March deadline. Considerable merits of the Australasian
bid were the superior venues and infrastructure and the total support of
both the New Zealand and Australian governments on tax and customs
issues during the tournament, according to Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland.[8] The New Zealand government had also given assurance that Zimbabwe
would be allowed to compete in the tournament, following political
discussions in the country whether their cricket team should be allowed
to tour Zimbabwe in 2005. The Australian bid also won the support of former West Indies captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul[9]
ICC President Ehsan Mani
said the extra time taken by the Asian block to hand over its bid
compliance book had harmed the four-nation bid. However, when the time
came to vote, Asia won the hosting rights by seven votes to three.[8] The Pakistan Cricket Board has revealed that it was the vote of the West Indies Cricket Board that swung the matter, as the Asian bid had the support of the four bidding countries along with South Africa and Zimbabwe.[10] It was reported in Pakistani newspaper Dawn that the Asian countries promised to hold fund-raising events for West Indian cricket during the 2007 World Cup, which may have influenced the vote.[11]
However, chairman of the Monitoring Committee of the Asian bid, I. S.
Bindra, said it was their promise of extra profits in the region of US$ 400 million that swung the vote,[12] that there "was no quid pro quo for their support",[13] and that playing the West Indies had "nothing to do with the World Cup bid".[13]
ICC prefers to rotate World Cup venues between major cricket playing
nations. The world cups have been hosted by England (Three times
1975,1979,1983), India/Pakistan 1987, Australia/New Zealand 1992,
India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka 1996, England (UK,Netherlands) 1999, South
Africa (Zimbabwe,Kenya) 2003, West Indies 2007. For the 2011 World Cup
Australia/New Zealand were a strong contender ahead of
India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka/Bangladesh because they had not hosted a World
cup since 1992. In the final voting India won because they argued that
since they were a bigger group of countries they should be assigned a
World cup more frequently. Due to this, Australia/New Zealand were
awarded the 2015 World Cup.
Format
Late in 2007, the four host nations agreed upon a revised format for
the 2011 World Cup identical to the 1996 World Cup, the only change
being the no. of teams as it was 12 in 1996 and 14 in 2011. The first
round of the tournament will be a round-robin in which the 14 teams are
divided into 2 groups of 7 teams each. The 7 teams play each other once
with the top 4 from each group qualifying for the quarter-finals.[14]
The format ensures that each team gets to play a minimum of 6 matches
even if they are ruled out of the tournament due to early defeats.
Qualification
As per ICC regulations, all 10 full members automatically qualify for
the World Cup, including Zimbabwe who have given up their Test playing
status until the standard of their team improves.[15]
The ICC also organised a qualifying tournament in South Africa to determine which Associate
teams would participate in 2011 event. Ireland, who had been the best
performing Associate nation since the last World Cup, won the
tournament, beating Canada in the final. The Netherlands and Kenya also
qualified by virtue of finishing third and fourth respectively.[16]
List of qualified teams
The following 14 teams qualified for the final tournament.
Preparations
Pakistan stripped of co-host status
Pakistan was stripped of its rights as co-host of the 2011 World Cup by the ICC on 17 April 2009[17][18]
due to ongoing concerns about the "uncertain security situation"
prevailing in the country, especially in the aftermath of terrorist
attacks in Lahore during Sri Lanka's tour in 2009.
The Pakistan Cricket Board has hinted that it may refuse to participate in the World Cup if they are asked to play in India.[19] However, there is no concrete evidence whether this will actually happen.
It is estimated that the PCB will lose $10.5 million due to the tournament being taken away from them.[20]
This figure only includes the match-fee of $750,000 per match
guaranteed by the ICC. The overall loss to the PCB and the Pakistani
economy is expected to be much greater.
On 9 April 2009, PCB chairman Ijaz Butt revealed that they had issued a legal notice to oppose ICC's decision.[21] However, the ICC claims that PCB is still a co-host and they have only shifted the matches out of Pakistan.[22] Pakistan had proposed that South Asia host the 2015 World Cup and Australia/New Zealand host 2011, however this option had not found favour with their co-hosts and hence didn't materialise.[23]
Allocation of matches
On 11 April 2005, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan announced an agreement about the allocation of games.[24] The original plan involved India hosting the final, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka would host the semi-finals.[25] and the opening ceremony will take place in Bangladesh.[26]
After being stripped of its co-host status, Pakistan made the bid to host its home games in the cities of UAE as a neutral home venue. This is a result of Pakistan playing matches in the preceding months in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.
The pitches in these stadia have also been developed to suit the
Pakistani players. This would not harm any timing schedules as there are
regular flights from the city of Mumbai to Dubai.
However, on 28 April 2009, the ICC announced the re-allocation of
matches originally intended to be played in Pakistan. As a result, India
will now host 29 matches across eight venues including the final and
one semi-final; Sri Lanka will host 12 in three venues, including one
semi-final; while Bangladesh will stage 8 at two grounds as well as the
opening ceremony on 17 February 2011.[27]
On 1 June 2010, the first phase of tickets for the 2011 World Cup in
India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have been put on sale following a
meeting of the tournament's Central Organising Committee in Mumbai. The
tickets have been priced affordably, with the cheapest costing 20 cents
US in Sri Lanka, the committee said.[28] In January 2011, the ICC declared the Eden Gardens
ground in Kolkata, India to be unfit and likely to be complete by
27 February when it was scheduled to host a match between India and
England. As a result, the match was moved to Bangalore.[29]
Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony will be held in Bangladesh. The venue for the opening ceremony is Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The event will take place on February 17, 2011, 2 days prior to the first match of the World Cup.
Prize
Trophy
The ICC Cricket World Cup Trophy is a running trophy, presented to the winning team since 1999. It was designed by Garrard & Co
within 2 months. The original trophy is kept with the ICC at
headquarters in Dubai. The winning team is given a replica. The only
difference between the two is that the original has the names of all the
previous winners inscribed on it.
Prize money
The 2011 Cricket World Cup winning team would be taking home a prize
money of US$ 3 million and US$ 1.5 million for runner-up, with the International Cricket Council
deciding to double the total allocation for the coveted tournament to
US$ 10 million. The decision was taken at the ICC Board meeting which
was held in Dubai on April 20, 2010.[30][31]
Venues
All the Indian stadiums for the 2011 World Cup had been finalized [32]
earlier, and the venues of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were finalised in
late October 2009. All the venues of the 2011 Cricket World Cup were
announced on 2 November 2009 in Mumbai by the International Cricket Council. Two new stadiums in Sri Lanka are being constructed exclusively for the 2011 World Cup. They are located in Kandy and Hambantota.[33]
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