User:Blnguyen/Cricket World Cup
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
after winning the Cricket World Cup.]]
The ICC Cricket World Cup, generally referred to as simply the Cricket World Cup, is the premier international championship of one day international mens national cricket teams. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC). The inaugural World Cup was contested in 1975, and the championship is held every four years. A Women's Cricket World Cup is also held every four years; the first Women's World Cup was held in 1973.
The event is contested by all Test-playing nations, (currently ten national teams officially recognised by the ICC in the longer form of the game), plus qualifiers, which are commonly referred to as minnows and are selected through minor international tournaments prior to the World Cup. The most recent World Cups have generally consisted of a Pool stage and a Super Six stage, which was followed by semi-finals and a final.
In the eight tournaments held so far, five teams have won. Australia, the current champions, is the most successful World Cup team, having won the tournament three times. West Indies won the first two tournaments while India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have won one each.
The most recent Cricket World Cup was held between 9 February and 24 March 2003, in Southern Africa, where Australia were crowned champions after beating India by 125 runs.[1] The next tournament will be held in the West Indies in 2007 and will consist of 16 teams.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Prior to the Cricket World Cup
The first cricket Test match was played in 1877 between Australia and England. Cricket was contested at the 1900 Summer Olympics where Great Britain defeated France by 158 runs.[2] From then on, The International Olympic Committee cancelled cricket as an Olympic sport.
The first attempt at arranging an international cricket competition was the 1912 Triangular Tournament. It was a Test cricket tournament played in England between the only three Test playing nations at the time, which were England, Australia and South Africa. Due to poor weather and a lack of public interest, the experiment was not repeated.[3] From then on, international test cricket teams only generally engaged in bilateral series's as opposed to tournaments or leagues involving more than two nations.
In the early 1960s, English county cricket teams began playing a shortened version of cricket, which only lasted for one day. Starting in 1962 as a 4-team knockout competition known as the Midlands Knock-Out Cup,[4] and the Gillette Cup in 1963, one-day cricket grew in popularity and in 1969 a national league called the Sunday League was created. The first one-day international came about from a rain-aborted Test match at Melbourne between England and Australia in 1971 and was played on the final scheduled day. The forty (eight-ball) over match was used as to fill the time and as compensation for the frustrated crowd.[5]
The success and popularity of the domestic one-day competitions in England and other parts of the world as well as the early One-day internationals prompted the International Cricket Council to consider organising a Cricket World Cup.[6]
[edit] The Prudential World Cups
The Cricket World Cup was first held in 1975 in England because it was the only nation at the time that had the resources to stage an event of such magnitude.[7] The first three tournaments were officially known as the Prudential Cup because the financial services company Prudential plc was the main sponsor in each event. The matches played consisted of 60 overs per team and were played in traditional white uniform and red balls. They were all played during the day and hence started early. Eight teams participated in the first tournament: Australia, England, the West Indies, Pakistan, India, and New Zealand (the six Test nations at the time), with Sri Lanka and a composite team from East Africa. One notable omission was the South African cricket team who were not competing due to the international sports boycott. West Indies won the first Cricket World Cup when they defeated Australia by 17 runs in the final.
The next two World Cups held in 1979 and 1983 were again hosted by England. The 1979 tournament saw the introduction of the ICC Trophy, a competition used to determine which non-Test playing teams qualified for the World Cup.[8] Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe qualified through the ICC Trophy. West Indies again won the tournament, defeating England by 92 runs in 1979.
The 1983 event was hosted by England for a third consecutive time. By this time, Sri Lanka became a Test playing nation; Zimbabwe qualified through the ICC Trophy. India were crowned champions after upsetting the West Indies by 43 runs in the final.
[edit] 1987 - present
The 1987 Cricket World Cup held in India and Pakistan was the first World Cup hosted outside of England. It was also the first tournament where the West Indies were unable to reach the final. The games were reduced from 60 to 50 overs per innings because of the shorter daylight hours on the subcontinent when compared to England. Australia won the championship by defeating England by 7 runs, the closest margin so far in World Cup final history.
The 1992 Cricket World Cup held by Australia and New Zealand brought many changes to the game such as coloured clothing, white balls, day/night matches and an alteration to the fielding restrictions.[9] Most significantly, it was the first tournament that the South African cricket team played in, following the end of the international sports boycott. Pakistan overcame a dismal start to emerge as winners, defeating England by 22 runs in the final at the MCG
The 1996 championships were held in the Subcontinent for the second time with the inclusion of Sri Lanka as host of some of its group stage matches. Due to security concerns, Australia and West Indies refused to play their respective matches against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, causing both matches to be awarded to Sri Lanka by default. Moreover, Sri Lanka, headed towards a crushing victory over India in their semi-final, were awarded victory by default when an impending embarrassing defeat for India, the home team, triggered the crowd to riot. This helped Sri Lanka's World Cup campaign. They claimed their inaugural championship once they defeated favorites Australia in the final.
The 1999 event returned to England after sixteen years with some matches also held in Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. Australia beat Pakistan in the final to claim their second title of the tournament.
South Africa hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup along with Zimbabwe and Kenya. The number of teams participating in the event increased from twelve to fourteen. Again because of security concerns, Zimbabwe and Kenya won their matches against England and New Zealand respectively, after the England and New Zealand teams forfeited the matches. Australia defeated India in the final to win the game by 125 runs and claim their third World Cup.[1]
[edit] Format
[edit] Qualification
- See also: 2007 Cricket World Cup qualification
The Qualifying tournaments were introduced for the second World Cup where two of the eight places were contested in the ICC Trophy.[8] The number of places decided from the ICC Trophy has constantly changed since its inception. It has depended on the number of teams participating in the tournament as well as the Test nations at the time. Currently, five places of the Cricket World Cup are selected from the ICC Trophy.
In the current qualifying process, there are stages that precede the ICC Trophy so that all 81 Associate and Affiliate members of the ICC are able to qualify for the World Cup. The ICC states that there are five steps for the 81 Associate and Affiliate members to be selected for the World Cup.[10] For some regions of the world, namely Africa, Europe and the Americas, the first stage of qualification is an Affiliate tournament. The next steps, which are for all regions of the world, are the final regional qualifying events. From the final regional events, eleven teams qualify directly for the ICC Trophy while many teams are still in contention. These teams that narrowly miss out on direct qualification for the ICC Trophy but are still in contention play in the ICC World Cup Qualifying Series. The winner of this event grabs the last spot in the ICC Trophy.[11]
From 2007 there will be a new system for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. The World Cricket League, which will be administered by the International Cricket Council, will be the new qualification system to provide the every associates and affiliates more opportunity to qualify.
[edit] Tournament
The format of the Cricket World Cup has changed greatly over the course of its history. The first four tournaments comprised of eight teams each, divided into two groups of four. There were two stages, a group stage and a knockout stage. In the 1975 and 1979 Cricket World Cups, each team played a round-robin, while in the following two tournaments, each team played the rest in their group twice. The top two teams in each group advanced to the semi-finals and the winners of the semi-finals played against each other in the final.
South Africa returned to international cricket in 1991, which meant that nine teams participated in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. All teams were in one group and played each other once. The top four qualified for the knockout stage which was contested in similar fashion to the previous events. In the 1996 competition, the number of teams increased from nine to twelve and they were allocated into two groups again. The top four teams of each group qualified for the knockout stage this time, which also included quarter-finals.
The tournament in 1999 has a similar group stage format to its predecessor but there was a dramatic change in the second stage. A "Super Six" round replaced the quarter-finals. There were still two groups of six but only three teams from each group went into the subsequent stage. In the Super Six round, each qualifier from group A played with each qualifier from group B. The teams earned points from their wins in the Super Six and also brought points scored against the two other teams who qualified from the same group in the group stages. The top four teams from the Super Six entered into the semi-finals and the rest of the tournament followed in similar fashion to its predecessors. The 2003 event had a similar structure to the 1999 competition except that the number of participants rose to fourteen, which meant that there were now seven teams in each pool in the group stage. The Super Six qualifiers also carried forward one point for each win in the group stage against non-qualifiers, a complexity which was dropped for the next world cup.[12]
A new format to be introduced in the 2007 tournament will feature 16 teams allocated into four groups of four. Eleven teams had one-day international status and automatically qualified for the tournament while the other five teams were selected from the ICC Trophy. Within each group, the teams will play each other in a round-robin format and the top two teams will advance to the "Super 8" round. The eight remaining teams will again play in a round-robin format, except that they will not play the other team that advanced from their respective group.[13] The top four teams from the Super 8 round will advance to the semi-finals and the winners of the semi-finals will then compete in the final.
[edit] Trophy
The ICC Cricket World Cup Trophy is the prize presented to winners of the Cricket World Cup along with cash prizes. The current trophy was created for the 1999 championships and is the first permanent prize in the tournament's history.[14] A team of craftsmen from Garrard & Co, the Crown Jewellers, designed and produced the trophy within two months in London.
The current trophy is 60 cm high, made from silver and gild and features a golden globe held up by three silver columns. The columns, shaped as stumps and bails, represents the three fundamental aspects of cricket: batting, bowling and fielding, while the globe characterises a cricket ball.[15] It is designed in platonic dimensions, so that it can be instantly recognised from any angle. The trophy weighs approximately 11 kilograms and has the names of the previous winners inscribed on its base. There is still room for another ten teams to have their name inscribed.
The actual trophy is always kept by the International Cricket Council but a replica, which is identical in all aspects apart from the inscription of the previous champions is awarded to the winning team and remains in their possession.
[edit] Media coverage
The modern Cricket World Cup receives television coverage and, in the more recent past, received ball-by-ball coverage on the internet.
The recent World Cups have transformed into larger media events than the previous ones, where One Day International Cricket was still in its developing stages. In modern times, Cricket World Cups also featured mascots. The World Cup mascot in the 2007 Cricket World Cup is an orange racoon-like creature known as Mello.[16][17]
[edit] Selection of hosts
The International Cricket Council's executive committee vote for the hosts of the tournament after examining the bids made by the nations keen to hold a Cricket World Cup. All the events thus far have been held in nations in which cricket is a popular sport. With the exception of Bangladesh and the West Indies, every Test playing nation has at least once hosted or co-hosted a Cricket World Cup. Many of the tournaments have also been jointly hosted by nations from the same geographical region, such as South Asia in 1987 and 1996, Australasia in 1992 and Southern Africa in 2003.
England hosted the first three competitions. The ICC decided that England should host the first tournament because it was ready to put the resources needed in organising the inaugural event.[7] India eagerly proposed that they should hold the third Cricket World Cup. In spite of this most of the ICC members believed England was a more suitable venue because longer period of daylight in June. This meant that a match could be completed in one day.[18] The first competition hosted outside of England was the 1987 tournament, which was jointly held in India and Pakistan. A change in location led to a reduction in the number of overs from sixty to fifty in each innings because of the shorter duration of daylight.
Thereafter an unofficial rotation system was introduced so that each cricket playing region of the world would have the opportunity to host World Cup about every twenty years. However, according to Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Cricinfo, owing to the increasing power and role of the Asian nations, particularly India, this convention has not been strictly adhered to. For example according to the rotation system, Australia and New Zealand should have been hosts of the event in 2011.[19][20] Nevertheless, the subcontinent won the bid because of their promise of earning an extra US$ 400 million in profit.[21]
