Other info. from wikipedia

Staging of matches

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 ^[13][14] 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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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.^[17] However, the ICC claims that the PCB is still a co-host and they have only shifted the matches out of Pakistan.^[18] Pakistan have proposed that South Asia host the 2015 World Cup and Australia/New Zealand host 2011, however this option has not found favour with their co-hosts and hence seems unlikely.

Allocation of matches

On 11 April 2005, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan announced an agreement about the allocation of games.^[20] The original plan involved India hosting the final, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka would host the semi-finals.^[21] and the opening ceremony will take place in Bangladesh.^[22]

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 in response to the fact that the last few months of cricket that Pakistan has played, has been in the cities of 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 18 February 2011.^[23]

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.

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.^[25] 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. One semi-final of the tournament was officially handed over to India, after Pakistan were stripped of its rights to host the tournament.

• The semi-final venues are the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka and PCA Stadium in Mohali, India
• The final is scheduled to be played at the renovated Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, India.

Qualification

Main articles: ICC World Cricket League 2007-09 and 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier

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.^[26]

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.

Host selection

Host selection

[edit]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 successfulAustralasian 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.^[7] 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^[8]

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.^[7] 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.^[9] 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.^[10] 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,^[11] that there "was no quid pro quo for their support",^[12] and that playing the West Indies had "nothing to do with the World Cup bid".^[12]

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.

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.[2]

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.[3] The headquarters of the organising committee were originally situated in Lahore, but have now been shifted to Mumbai.[4] Pakistan was supposed to hold 14 matches, including one semi-final.[5] Eight of Pakistan's matches have been awarded to India, four to Sri Lanka and two to Bangladesh.

History from wikipedia

Early cricket was at some time or another described as "a club striking a ball (like) the ancient games of club-ball, stool-ball, trap-ball, stob-ball".[7] Cricket can definitely be traced back to Tudor times in early 16th-century England. Written evidence exists of a game known as creag being played by Prince Edward, the son of Edward I (Longshanks), at Newenden, Kent in 1301[8] and there has been speculation, but no evidence, that this was a form of cricket.

A number of other words have been suggested as sources for the term "cricket". In the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598,[9] it is called creckett. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch[10] krick(-e), meaning a stick (crook); or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff.[11] In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick.[12] In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick".[13] Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket with two stumps used in early cricket.[14] According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase").[15] Dr Gillmeister believes that not only the name but the sport itself is of Flemish origin.[16]

In 1598,[9] a court case referred to a sport called creckett being played by boys at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford around 1550. This is the sport's earliest definite mention. It is believed that it was originally a children's game but references around 1610[17] indicate that adults had started playing it and the earliest reference to inter-parish or village cricket occurs soon afterwards. In 1624, a player called Jasper Vinall was killed when he was struck on the head during a match between two parish teams in Sussex.[18]
The first English touring team on board ship at Liverpool in 1859

During the 17th century, numerous references indicate the growth of cricket in the south-east of England. By the end of the century, it had become an organised activity being played for high stakes and it is believed that the first professionals appeared in the years following the Restoration in 1660. A newspaper report survives of "a great cricket match" with eleven players a side that was played for high stakes in Sussex in 1697 and this is the earliest known reference to a cricket match of such importance.

The game underwent major development in the 18th century and became the national sport of England. Betting played a major part in that development with rich patrons forming their own "select XIs". Cricket was prominent in London as early as 1707 and large crowds flocked to matches on the Artillery Ground in Finsbury. The single wicket form of the sport attracted huge crowds and wagers to match. Bowling evolved around 1760 when bowlers began to pitch the ball instead of rolling or skimming it towards the batsman. This caused a revolution in bat design because, to deal with the bouncing ball, it was necessary to introduce the modern straight bat in place of the old "hockey stick" shape. The Hambledon Club was founded in the 1760s and, for the next 20 years until the formation of MCC and the opening of Lord's Old Ground in 1787, Hambledon was both the game's greatest club and its focal point. MCC quickly became the sport's premier club and the custodian of the Laws of Cricket. New Laws introduced in the latter part of the 18th century included the three stump wicket and leg before wicket (lbw).
Don Bradman had a Test average of 99.94 and an overall first-class average of 95.14, records unmatched by any other player.[19]

The 19th century saw underarm bowling replaced by first roundarm and then overarm bowling. Both developments were controversial. Organisation of the game at county level led to the creation of the county clubs, starting with Sussex CCC in 1839, which ultimately formed the official County Championship in 1890. Meanwhile, the British Empire had been instrumental in spreading the game overseas and by the middle of the 19th century it had become well established in India, North America, the Caribbean, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In 1844, the first international cricket match took place between the United States and Canada (although neither has ever been ranked as a Test-playing nation).

In 1859, a team of England players went on the first overseas tour (to North America) and in 1862, an English team made the first tour of Australia. In 1876–77, an England team took part in the first-ever Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground against Australia.

W G Grace started his long career in 1865; his career is often said to have revolutionised the sport.[20] The rivalry between England and Australia gave birth to The Ashes in 1882 and this has remained Test cricket's most famous contest[citation needed]. Test cricket began to expand in 1888–89 when South Africa played England. The last two decades before the First World War have been called the "Golden Age of cricket". It is a nostalgic name prompted by the collective sense of loss resulting from the war, but the period did produce some great players and memorable matches, especially as organised competition at county and Test level developed.

The inter-war years were dominated by one player: Australia's Don Bradman, statistically the greatest batsman of all time. It was the determination of the England team to overcome his skill that brought about the infamous Bodyline series in 1932–33, particularly from the accurate short-pitched bowling of Harold Larwood. Test cricket continued to expand during the 20th century with the addition of the West Indies, India, and New Zealand before the Second World War and then Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh in the post-war period. However, South Africa was banned from international cricket from 1970 to 1992 because of its government's apartheid policy.

Cricket entered a new era in 1963 when English counties introduced the limited overs variant. As it was sure to produce a result, limited overs cricket was lucrative and the number of matches increased. The first Limited Overs International was played in 1971. The governing International Cricket Council (ICC) saw its potential and staged the first limited overs Cricket World Cup in 1975. In the 21st century, a new limited overs form, Twenty20, has made an immediate impact.

About cricket from wikipedia

Cricket is a bat-and-ball team sport. Many variations exist, with its most popular form played on an oval-shaped outdoor arena known as a cricket field at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard (20.12 m) long pitch that is the focus of the game. A game (or match) is contested between two teams of eleven players each. One team bats, and will try to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the runs scored by the batting team. A run is scored by the striking batsman hitting the ball with his bat, running to the opposite end of the pitch and touching the crease there without being dismissed. The teams switch between batting and fielding at the end of an innings.

There are also variations in the length of a game of cricket. In professional cricket this ranges from a limit of 20 overs per side (Twenty20) to a game played over 5 days (Test cricket, which is the highest level of the game). Depending on the form of the match being played, there are different rules that govern how a game is won, lost, drawn or tied. The rules of two-innings games are known as the Laws of Cricket and maintained by the ICC and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC); additional Standard Playing Conditions for Test matches and One Day Internationals augment these laws. In one version of Indoor Cricket, matches include just 6 players per side and include two 12-over innings.

Cricket was first documented as being played in southern England in the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, it had developed to the point where it had become the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led to cricket being played overseas and by the mid-19th century the first international matches were being held. Today, the game's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), has 105 member countries.[3] With its greatest popularity in the Test playing countries, cricket is the world's second most popular sport after Association football.