World Cup Cricket 2011

World Cup Cricket 2011:
World Cup cricket 2011ficture has been scheduled finally. The three South Asian countries will host the tournament. The countries are Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. The opening ceremony will be held in Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur in Bangladesh on 17 February 2011. Also the first match between Bangladesh and India will be held in the same venue on 19 February. Out of total 49 matches in the tournament, India will host highest 29 games including a quarter final and the tournament final. Sri Lanka will organize 12 matches including a quarter final as well as a semi final, while Bangladesh will stage 8 games including 2 quarter finals. Except the opening game, India will play all of their group stage matches at home; while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will play the group stage matches in front of their home crowd.

Tournament Format:
There are 14 teams who will be participating in the tournament including 10 test playing nations and 4 associate member countries. The test playing teams have automatically qualified for the tournament, while the 4 associate members have come through the qualifying tournament held in South Africa earlier this year. The four associate members are: Ireland, Canada, Netherlands and Kenya.

The format of ICC World Cup 2011 is not same to that of the previous world cup that took place in West Indies in 2007. All of the 14 teams are divided into two groups of 7 teams each. In the group stage, each team will play against all other group members once in a round robin league system.

In 2007 world cup, there was a ‘Super Eight’ phase involving 8 teams who qualified through group stage, and four best teams from ‘Super Eight’ progressed to the semi final. However, there is no super eight phase in 2011 world cup. In stead, top four teams from each group in terms of points achieved will qualify for the quarter final. There are four quarter finals scheduled to take place on 23 March, 24 March, 25 March and 26 March. That means knock out stage starts just after the group stage. Four winners of the four quarter finals will get into the semi final of the tournament. The winners of the semi finals will meet each other in the tournament final at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on 2 April 2009.

Group A: Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya
Group B: India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland and Netherlands.

Tournament Venues:
All of the 49 matches will be held in 13 different venues across the three countries. Except two new venues in Sri Lanka (Hambantota and Pallekele), the rest of them are test venues including India’s 8 well-known test grounds. Here, I am giving the names of the venues:

India
• MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai,
• Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad,
• Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur,
• Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi,
• Eden Gardens, Kolkata,
• M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore,
• Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, Chandigarh,
• Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Bangladesh
• Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Dhaka
• Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chittagong

Sri Lanka
• Hambantota,
• Pallekele,
• R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo