Cricket World Cup

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the most recent tournament, see 2011 Cricket World Cup.

ICC Cricket World Cup

The current Cricket World Cup Trophy.

Administrator

International Cricket Council

Format

One Day International

First tournament

1975, England

Last tournament

2011, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka

Next tournament

2015, Australia and New Zealand

Tournament format

multiple (refer to article)

Number of teams

19

Current champion

India (2 titles)

Most successful

Australia (4 titles)

Most runs

Sachin Tendulkar (2,278)

Most wickets

Glenn McGrath (71)

vde

The ICC Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men's One Day International (ODI) cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament which is held every four years. The tournament is the world's fourth-largest and fourth-most-viewed sporting event.[1][2] According to the ICC, it is the most important tournament and the pinnacle of achievement in the sport.[3][4] The first Cricket World Cup contest was organised in England in 1975. A separate Women's Cricket World Cuphas been held every four years since 1973. The finals of the Cricket World Cup are contested by all ten Test-playing and ODI-playing nations, together with other nations that qualify through the World Cup Qualifier. Australia has been the most successful of the five teams to have won the tournament, taking four titles. The West Indies and India have won twice, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka have each won once. The 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup was co-hosted by Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka from February 19 to April 2, 2011. 14 countries participated in the tournament. India won the cup by defeating Sri Lanka by 6 wickets in the final in Mumbai on 2 April and became the first team to win the World Cup final on home soil.[5]
Contents
[hide]

1 History 1.1 Before the first Cricket World

Cup

o o o o o
2 Format

1.2 Prudential World Cups 1.3 19871996 1.4 Australian treble 1.5 2011

2.1 Qualification

o o o o o o o
Cup Final 8 Awards 3 Trophy

2.2 Tournament

4 Media coverage 5 Selection of hosts 6 Tournament history 7 Performances by Teams 7.1 Debutant teams 7.2 Overview 7.3 Team results 7.4 Legend

8.1 Man of the Tournament 8.2 Man of the Match in the World

9 Tournament Records 9.1 Main individual and team

records

10 See also 11 References 12 Notes 13 External links

[edit]History
Main article: History of the Cricket World Cup

[edit]Before

the first Cricket World Cup

The first ever international cricket match was played between Canada and the United States, on the 24 and 25 September 1844. However, the first credited Test match was played in 1877 between Australia andEngland, and the two teams competed regularly for The Ashes in subsequent years. South Africa was admitted to Test status in 1889.[6] Representative cricket teams were selected to tour each other, resulting in bilateral competition. Cricket was also included as an Olympic sport at the 1900 Paris Games, where Great Britain defeated France to win the gold medal.[7] This was the only appearance of cricket at the Summer Olympics.

The first multilateral competition at international level was the 1912 Triangular Tournament, a Test cricket tournament played in England between all three Test-playing nations at the time: England, Australia and South Africa. The event was not a success: the summer was exceptionally wet, making play difficult on damp uncovered pitches, and attendances were poor, attributed to a "surfeit of cricket".[8] In subsequent years, international Test cricket has generally been organised as bilateral series: a multilateral Test tournament was not organised again until the quadrangular Asian Test Championship in 1999. The number of nations playing Test cricket increased gradually over the years, with the addition of West Indies in 1928, New Zealand in 1930, India in 1932, and Pakistan in 1952, but international cricket continued to be played as bilateral Test matches over three, four or five days. In the early 1960s, English county cricket teams began playing a shortened version of cricket which only lasted for one day. Starting in 1962 with a four-team knockout competition known as the Midlands Knock-Out Cup,
[9]

and continuing with the inaugural Gillette Cup in 1963, one-day cricket grew in popularity in England. A

national Sunday League was formed in 1969. The first One-Day International event was played on the fifth day of a rain-aborted Test match between England and Australia at Melbourne in 1971, to fill the time available and as compensation for the frustrated crowd. It was a forty over match with eight balls per over.[10] In the late 1970s, Kerry Packer established the rival World Series Cricket (WSC) competition, and it introduced many of the features of One Day International cricket that are now commonplace, including coloured uniforms, matches played at night under floodlights with a white ball and dark sight screens, and, for television broadcasts, multiple camera angles, effects microphones to capture sounds from the players on the pitch, and on-screen graphics. The first of the matches with coloured uniforms was the WSC Australians in wattle gold versus WSC West Indians in coral pink, played at VFL Park in Melbourne on 17 January 1979. It was credited[by whom?] with making cricket a more professional sport. 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 ICC to consider organising a Cricket World Cup.[11]

[edit]Prudential

World Cups

The Prudential Cup trophy

The inaugural Cricket World Cup was hosted in 1975 by England, the only nation able to put forward the resources to stage an event of such magnitude at that time. The 1975 tournament started on 7 June.[12] The first three events were held in England and officially known as the Prudential Cup after the sponsors Prudential plc. The matches consisted of 60 six-ball overs per team, played during the daytime in traditional form, with the players wearing cricket whites and using red cricket balls.[13] Eight teams participated in the first tournament: Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the West Indies (the six Test nations at the time), together with Sri Lanka and a composite team from East Africa.[14] One notable omission was South Africa, who were banned from international cricket due to apartheid. The tournament was won by the West Indies, who defeated Australia by 17 runs in the final at Lord's.[14] The 1979 World Cup saw the introduction of the ICC Trophy competition to select non-Test playing teams for the World Cup,[15] with Sri Lanka and Canada qualifying.[16]West Indies won a second consecutive World Cup tournament, defeating the hosts, England, by 92 runs in the final. At a meeting which followed the World Cup, the International Cricket Conference agreed to make the competition a quadrennial event.[16] The 1983 event was hosted by England for a third consecutive time. By this time, Sri Lanka had become a Test-playing nation, and Zimbabwe qualified through the ICC Trophy. A fielding circle was introduced, 30 yards (27 m) away from the stumps. Four fieldsmen needed to be inside it at all times.[17] India, an outsider quoted at 661 to win by bookmakers before the competition began, were crowned champions after upsetting the West Indies by 43 runs in the final.[11][18]

[edit]19871996

The 1987 tournament, named the Reliance World Cup after their Indian sponsors, was held in India and Pakistan, the first time that the competition was held outside England. The games were reduced from 60 to 50 overs per innings, the current standard, because of the shorter daylight hours in the Indian subcontinent compared with England's summer.[19] Australia won the championship by defeating England by 7 runs in the final, the closest margin in World Cup final history.[20][21] The 1992 World Cup, held in Australia and New Zealand, introduced many changes to the game, such as coloured clothing, white balls, day/night matches, and an alteration to the fielding restrictions. The South African cricket team participated in the event for the first time, following the fall of the apartheid regime and the end of the international sports boycott.[22] Pakistan overcame a dismal start to emerge as winners, defeating England by 22 runs in the final.[23] The 1996 championship was held in the Indian subcontinent for a second time, with the inclusion of Sri Lanka as host for some of its group stage matches.[24] In the semi-final, Sri Lanka, heading towards a crushing victory over India at Eden Gardens (Calcutta) after their hosts lost eight wickets while scoring 120 runs in pursuit of 254, were awarded victory by default after riots broke out in protest against the Indian performance.[25] Sri Lanka went on to win their maiden championship by defeating Australia by seven wickets in the final, which was held in Lahore.[26]

[edit]Australian

treble

In 1999 the event was hosted by England, with some matches also being held in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Netherlands.[27][28] Australia qualified for the semi-finals after reaching their target in their Super 6 match against South Africa off the final over of the match.[29] They then proceeded to the final with a tied match in the semi-final (also against South Africa) where a mix-up between South African batsmen Lance Klusener and Allan Donald saw Donald drop his bat and stranded mid-pitch to be run out. In the final, Australia dismissed Pakistan for 132 and then reached the target in less than 20 overs, with eight wickets in hand.[30]

A large crowd of over 10,000 fans welcome the Australian team on completing the first World Cup hat-trick Martin Place, Sydney.

South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya hosted the 2003 World Cup. The number of teams participating in the event increased from twelve to fourteen. Kenya's victories over Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, among others and a forfeit by the New Zealand team, which refused to play in Kenya because of security concerns enabled Kenya to reach the semi-finals, the best result by an associate. In the final, Australia made 359 runs for the loss of two wickets, the largest ever total in a final, defeating India by 125 runs.[31][32] In 2007 the tournament was hosted by the West Indies; the Cricket World Cup became the first such tournament to be hosted on all six populated continents.[33] Bangladeshprogressed to the second round for the first time, after defeating India, and they later went on to defeat South Africa in the second round.
[34]

Ireland making their World Cup debut tied with Zimbabwe and defeated Pakistan to progress to the second

round, where they went on to defeating Bangladesh to get promoted to the main ODI table.[35]Following their defeat to Ireland, the Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room; it was later found out that he died of heart failure,[36] though his death may not have been a direct result of the match's outcome. Australia defeated Sri Lanka in the final by 53 runs (D/L), in farcical light conditions, extending their undefeated run in the World Cup to 29 matches and winning three straight World Cups.[37]

[edit]2011
Main article: 2011 Cricket World Cup The 2011 Cricket World Cup was jointly hosted by India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Pakistan were stripped of their hosting rights following the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, with the games originally scheduled for Pakistan redistributed to the other host countries. The 2011 World Cup was the tenth edition of the tournament. Fourteen teams participated, split into two pools of seven teams each. The top four teams from each group qualified for the quarter-finals. India won their second World Cup title by beating Sri Lanka in the finals.

[edit]Format [edit]Qualification
Main article: Cricket World Cup qualification The Test-playing nations qualify automatically for the World Cup main event, while the other teams have to qualify through a series of preliminary qualifying tournaments. The One Day International playing nations automatically enter the final qualification tournament, the World Cup Qualifier, along with other nations who have qualified through separate competitions. Qualifying tournaments were introduced for the second World Cup, where two of the eight places in the finals were awarded to the leading teams in the ICC Trophy.[15] The number of teams selected through the ICC Trophy has varied throughout the years; currently, six teams are selected for the Cricket World Cup. The World

Cricket League (administered by the International Cricket Council) is the qualification system provided to allow the Associate and Affiliate members of the ICC more opportunities to qualify.The name "ICC Trophy" has been changed to "ICC World Cup Qualifier".[38] Under the current qualifying process, the World Cricket League, all 91 Associate and Affiliate members of the ICC are able to qualify for the World Cup. Associate and Affiliate members must play between two and five stages in the ICC World Cricket League to qualify for the World Cup finals, depending on the Division in which they start the qualifying process. Process summary in chronological order: 1. Regional tournaments: Top teams from each regional tournaments will be promoted to a

division depending on the teams' rankings according to the ICC and each division's empty spots.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Division One: 6 Teams All automatically qualify for the World Cup Qualifier. Division Three: 6 Teams Top 2 promoted to Division Two. Division Two: 6 Teams Top 4 qualify for the World Cup Qualifier. Division Five: 6 Teams Top 2 promoted to Division Four. Division Four: 6 Teams Top 2 promoted to Division Three. Division Three (second edition): 6 Teams Top 2 qualify for the World Cup Qualifier. World Cup Qualifier: 12 Teams Top 6 are awarded ODI status and Top 4 qualify for the

World Cup.

[edit]Tournament
See also: History of the Cricket World Cup#Historical formats of final tournament

The captains of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

The format of the Cricket World Cup has changed greatly over the course of its history. Each of the first four tournaments was played by eight teams, divided into two groups of four.[39] There, competition comprised two stages, a group stage and a knock-out stage. The four teams in each group played each other in the roundrobin group stage, with the top two teams in each group progressing to the semi-finals. The winners of the

semi-finals played against each other in the final. With the return of South Africa in 1992 after the ending of the apartheid boycott, nine teams played each other once in the group phase, and the top four teams progressed to the semi-finals.[40] The tournament was further expanded in 1996, with two groups of six teams.[41] The top four teams from each group progressed to quarter-finals and semi-finals. A new format was used for the 1999 and 2003 World Cups. The teams were split into two pools, with the top three teams in each pool advancing to the Super 6.[42] The "Super 6" teams played the three other teams that advanced from the other group. As they advanced, the teams carried their points forward from previous matches against other teams advancing alongside them, giving them an incentive to perform well in the group stages.[42] The top four teams from the "Super 6" stage progressed to the semi-finals, with winners playing in the final. The last format used in the 2007 World Cup, features 16 teams allocated into four groups of four.[43] Within each group, the teams play each other in a round-robin format. Teams earn points for wins and half-points for ties. The top two teams from each group move forward to the Super 8 round. The "Super 8" teams play the other six teams that progressed from the different groups. Teams earned points in the same way as the group stage, but carrying their points forward from previous matches against the other teams who qualified from the same group to the "Super 8" stage.[44] The top four teams from the "Super 8" round advance to the semi-finals, and the winners of the semi-finals play in the final. The current format, approved by ICC to be used in 2011 World Cup, features 14 teams allocated. Within each group, the teams will play in a round-robin format. The top four teams from each group will proceed to the knock out stage playing quarter-finals. Winners of the quarter-finals will play semi-finals and the winning semifinalists will play in the final.

[edit]Trophy

The Cricket World Cup trophy which is kept by the ICC.

Main article: Cricket World Cup Trophy

The ICC Cricket World Cup Trophy is presented to the winners of the World Cup finals. The current trophy was created for the 1999 championships, and was the first permanent prize in the tournament's history; prior to this, different trophies were made for each World Cup.[45] The trophy was designed and produced in London by a team of craftsmen from Garrard & Co over a period of two months. The current trophy is made from silver and gild, and features a golden globe held up by three silver columns. The columns, shaped as stumps and bails, represent the three fundamental aspects of cricket: batting, bowling and fielding, while the globe characterises a cricket ball.[46] It stands 60 cm high and weighs approximately 11 kilograms. The names of the previous winners are engraved on the base of the trophy, with space for a total of twenty inscriptions. The original trophy is kept by the ICC. A replica, which differs only in the inscriptions, is permanently awarded to the winning team.

[edit]Media

coverage

Mello

The tournament is the world's third largest (with only the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics exceeding it), being televised in over 200 countries to over 2.2 billion television viewers.[1][2][47][48] Television rights, mainly for the 2011 and 2015 World Cup, were sold for over US$1.1 billion,[49] and sponsorship rights were sold for a further US$500 million.[50] The 2003 Cricket World Cup matches were attended by 626,845 people,[51] while the 2007 Cricket World Cup sold more than 672,000 tickets and recorded the highest ticketing revenue for a Cricket World Cup.[52][53] Successive World Cup tournaments have generated increasing media attention as One-Day International cricket has become more established. The 2003 World Cup in South Africa was the first to sport a mascot, Dazzler the zebra. An orange raccoon-like creature known as Mello was the mascot for the 2007 Cricket World Cup. Stumpy, a blue elephant was the mascot for the 2011 World Cup.[54]

[edit]Selection

of hosts

Civic Centre, South Africa honours the 2003 World Cup.

Main article: Cricket World Cup hosts The International Cricket Council's executive committee votes for the hosts of the tournament after examining the bids made by the nations keen to hold a Cricket World Cup.[55] England hosted the first three competitions. The ICC decided that England should host the first tournament because it was ready to devote the resources required to organising the inaugural event.[12] India volunteered to host the third Cricket World Cup, but most ICC members believed England to be a more suitable venue because the longer period of daylight in England in June[56] meant that a match could be completed in one day.
[57]

The 1987 Cricket World Cup was the first hosted outside England, held in Pakistan and India.

Many of the tournaments have been jointly hosted by nations from the same geographical region, such as South Asia in 1987, 1996 and 2011, Australasia in 1992, Southern Africa in 2003 and West Indies in 2007.

[edit]Tournament

history

Year

Host Nation(s)

Final Venue

1975 Details

England

Lord's, London

291

1979 Details

England

Lord's, London

286

1983 Details

England

Lord's, London

183 all

1987 Details

India, Pakistan

Eden Gardens, Kolkata

253

1992 Details

Australia, New Zealand

MCG, Melbourne

249

1996 Details

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore

245/

1999 Details

England

Lord's, London

133/

2003 Details

South Africa

Wanderers, Johannesburg

359

2007 Details

West Indies

Kensington Oval, Bridgetown

281

2011 Details

India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka

Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

277/

2015 Details

Australia, New Zealand

Not designated

2019 Details

England

Not designated

Yea r

Teams

1975

8 teams

1979

8 teams

1983

8 teams

Yea r

Teams

1987

8 teams

1992

9 teams

1996

12 teams

1999

12 teams

2003

14 teams

2007

16 teams

2011

14 teams

2015

14 teams

2019

TBD

[edit]Performances

by Teams

Map of each nation's best results

Nineteen nations have qualified for the finals of the Cricket World Cup at least once (excluding qualification tournaments). Seven teams have competed in every finals tournament, five of which have won the title.
[11]

The West Indies won the first two tournaments, and Australia has won four, India has won two,

while Pakistan and Sri Lanka have each won once. The West Indies (1975 and 1979) and Australia

(1999, 2003 and 2007) are the only nations to have won consecutive titles.[11] Australia has played in 6 of the 9 final matches (1975, 1987, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007) including the finals in the four most recent tournaments. England has yet to win the World Cup, but has been runners-up three times (1979, 1987, 1992). The best result by a non-Test playing nation is the semi-final appearance by Kenya in the 2003 tournament; while the best result by a non-Test playing team on their debut is the Super 8 (second round) by Ireland in 2007.[11] Sri Lanka, who co-hosted the 1996 Cricket World Cup, was the first host to win the tournament, though the final was held in Pakistan.[11] India won the 2011 as host and was the first team to win in a final played in their own country.[58] Other countries which have achieved or equalled their best World Cup results while co-hosting the tournament are New Zealand, semi-finalists in 1992; Zimbabwe, reaching the Super Six in 2003; and Kenya, semi-finalists in 2003.[11] In 1987, co-hosts India and Pakistan both reached the semi-finals, but were eliminated by Australia and England respectively.[11]

[edit]Debutant Yea r

teams
Teams

1975

Australia, East Africa, West Indies

England,

India,

New Zealand,

Pakistan,

Sri Lanka,

1979

Canada

1983

Zimbabwe

1987 none

1992

South Africa

1996

Kenya,

Netherlands,

United Arab Emirates

1999

Bangladesh,

Scotland

2003

Namibia

2007

Bermuda,

Ireland

2011 none

No longer exists.

[edit]Overview
The table below provides an overview of the performances of teams over past World Cups, as of the end of the 2011 tournament. Teams are sorted by best performance, then total number of wins, then total number of games, then by alphabetical order.

Appearances Team Total First Latest Best result

Statistics

Played Won Lost Tie NR

Australia

10

1975

2011

Champions (1987, 1999, 2003, 2007)

76

55

19

India

10

1975

2011

Champions (1983, 2011)

67

39

26

West Indies

10

1975

2011

Champions (1975, 1979)

64

38

25

Pakistan

10

1975

2011

Champions (1992)

64

36

26

Sri Lanka

10

1975

2011

Champions (1996)

66

31

31

England

10

1975

2011

Runners-up (1979, 1987, 1992)

66

39

25

New Zealand

10

1975

2011

Semifinals (1975, 1979, 1992, 1999, 2007, 2011)

70

40

29

South Africa

1992

2011

Semifinals (1992, 1999, 2007)

47

31

14

Kenya

1996

2011

Semifinals (2003)

29

22

Zimbabwe

1983

2011

Super Six (1999, 2003)

51

10

37

Bangladesh

1999

2011

Super 8 (2007)

26

17

Ireland

2007

2011

Super 8 (2007)

15

10

Canada

1979

2011

Group Stage

18

16

Netherlands

1996

2011

Group Stage

20

18

United Arab Emirates

1996

1996

Group Stage

Bermuda

2007

2007

Group Stage

Namibia

2003

2003

Group Stage

Scotland

1999

2007

Group Stage

East Africa

1975

1975

Group Stage

No longer exists.

[edit]Team

results

Comprehensive team results of over past World Cups.

1975 1979 1983 1987 1992 1996 1999 2003 2007 2011 Team

[edit]Legend 1st

Champions Up Australia 2nd R1 R1 1st R1 2nd 1st 1st 1st QF SF Semi2nd Runners

finals Bangladesh R1 R1 S8 R1 S8 Super

Eight (2007 only) R1 S6 Super Six

Bermuda

(19992003) QF QuarterR1

Canada

R1

R1

R1

finals (1996 & 2011)

East Africa

R1

R1 First

Round England SF 2nd SF 2nd 2nd QF R1 R1 S8 QF

India

R1

R1

1st

SF

R1

SF

S6

2nd

R1

1st

Ireland

S8

R1

Kenya

R1

R1

SF

R1

R1

Namibia

R1

Netherlands

R1

R1

R1

R1

New Zealand

SF

SF

R1

R1

SF

QF

SF

S6

SF

SF

Pakistan

R1

SF

SF

SF

1st

QF

2nd

R1

R1

SF

Scotland

R1

R1

South Africa

SF

QF

SF

R1

SF

QF

Sri Lanka

R1

R1

R1

R1

R1

1st

R1

SF

2nd

2nd

United Arab Emirates

R1

West Indies

1st

1st

2nd

R1

R1

SF

R1

R1

S8

QF

Zimbabwe

R1

R1

R1

R1

S6

S6

R1

R1

No longer exists. [edit]Awards [edit]Man

of the Tournament

Main article: Cricket World Cup awards Since 1992, one player has been declared as "Man of the Tournament" at the end of the World Cup finals:[59]

Yea r

Player

Performance details

1992

Martin Crowe

456 runs

1996

Sanath Jayasuriya 221 runs and 7 wickets

1999

Lance Klusener

281 runs and 17 wickets

2003

Sachin Tendulkar 673 runs and 2 wickets

2007

Glenn McGrath

26 wickets

2011

Yuvraj Singh

362 runs and 15 wickets

[edit]Man

of the Match in the World Cup Final

Previously, there was no tournament award, although Man of the Match awards have always been given for individual matches. Winning the Man of the Match in the final is logically noteworthy, as this indicates the player deemed to have played the biggest part in the World Cup final. To date the award has always gone to a member of the winning side. The Man of the Match award in the final of the competition has been awarded to:
[59]

Yea r

Player

Performance details

1975

Clive Lloyd

102 runs

1979

Viv Richards

138*

1983

Mohinder Amarnath

3/12 and 26

1987

David Boon

75 runs

1992

Wasim Akram

33 and 3/49

1996

Aravinda de Silva

107* and 3/42

1999

Shane Warne

4/33

2003

Ricky Ponting

140*

2007

Adam Gilchrist

149

2011

Mahendra Singh Dhoni 91*

[edit]Tournament [edit]Main

Records

individual and team records

Main article: List of Cricket World Cup records

Sachin Tendulkar, the leading run-scorer in World Cup history.

World Cup records[60]

Batting

Most runs

Sachin Tendulkar

2278 (19922011)

Highest average (min. 20 inns.)

Viv Richards

63.31 (19751987)

Highest score

Gary Kirsten v UAE

188* (1996)

Highest partnership

Sourav Ganguly & Rahul Dravid 318 (1999) (2nd wicket) v Sri Lanka

Most runs in a tournament

Sachin Tendulkar

673 (2003)

Bowling

Most wickets

Glenn McGrath

71 (19962007)

Lowest average (min. 1000 balls bowled)

Glenn McGrath

19.21 (19962007)

Best bowling figures

Glenn McGrath v Namibia

7/15 (2003)

Most wickets in a tournament

Glenn McGrath

26 (2007)

Fielding

Most dismissals (wicket-keeper)

Adam Gilchrist

39 (19992007)

Most catches (fielder)

Ricky Ponting

28 (19962011)

Team

Highest score

India v Bermuda

413/5 (2007)

Lowest score

Canada v Sri Lanka

36 (2003)

Highest win %

Australia

74% (Played 76, Won 55)

Most consecutive wins

Australia

26 (19992011)

Most consecutive tournament wins [edit]See

Australia

3 (19992007)[61]

also

. What is the difference between the Standard Edition and the Professional Edition?

At the top level of the game, the Professional Edition of the D/L method is now used. This requires use of a computer program. At lower levels of the game, where use of a computer cannot always be guaranteed, the Standard Edition is used. This is the method which was used universally before 2004; it is operated manually using the published tables of resource percentages.

2. Why should Team 2 sometimes be set the task of scoring more runs than were made by Team 1 when they have the same number of overs to face?

When the interruption occurs during the first innings, so that the match is shortened to one of fewer overs per side than it was at its start, Team 1 are usually more disadvantaged than Team 2. Before the stoppage they had been pacing their innings in the expectation of receiving say 50 overs and would not have taken the risks of scoring as fast as they would have done had they known their innings was to be shortened. Team 2, on the other hand, know from the start of their innings that they have the reduced number of overs and can pace their entire innings accordingly. Team 2 are set a higher target to compensate Team1 for this disadvantage.

Consider, for example, when Team 1 have batted for 40 of an intended 50-over innings and then rain washes out the rest of their innings and there is just time for Team 2 to receive 40 overs. If they had wickets in hand, Team 1 might have expected to make around 60 or 70 in those final 10 overs. But Team 2 know they have only 40 overs to receive from the moment they start their innings. The average score in a 40-over innings is only 20 to 25 less than that made in 50 overs, so Team 1's loss is typically 40-45 runs greater than Team 2's and the target is raised by about this amount.

The necessity to set a higher target for Team 2 arises from the regulations for most competitions that require that lost overs, where possible, be divided equally between the two sides. It would be possible to compensate Team 1 for their disadvantage by allowing them to face more overs than Team 2 and in this way the latter need not be set an enhanced target, but this would require a complicated calculation and would reduce the scope for accommodating further stoppages. Because of these disadvantages, cricket authorities have preferred to stay with the present regulations.

3. Why should this apply when Team 1 have been bowled out?

In limited-overs cricket no distinction is made between the two ways in which an innings is closed, using up all the overs or losing all ten wickets. In both cases the team have used up all the resources of their innings. In an uninterrupted innings, there is no difference between Team 1's score of 250, for instance, whether it were 250 for 3 wickets in 50 overs or whether it were 250 all out in 47 overs. Similarly in an interrupted innings, the method of target

revision cannot and should not distinguish between whether Team 1's innings were terminated by being all out or by using up their allocation of over.

4. When Team 2 have more resources than Team 1, why do you not simply scale up the target by the ratio of resources?

In the Professional Edition, which is now used in most top-level matches including ODIs, the problem of early high scoring rates producing anomalously high targets has been overcome, and so direct scaling is employed. So this question only relates to the Standard Edition.

In the Standard Edition, to scale up a target by the ratio of resources could lead to some unrealistically high targets if Team 1 had achieved an early high rate of scoring and rain caused a drastic reduction in the overs for the match; see Q10, for instance). We have preferred, therefore, to assume average performance for Team 1's additional loss of resource over Team 2.

5. But why should the target score sometimes go down if there is an interruption in the first innings and teams have the same number of overs?

In interruptions to the first innings the D/L method makes appropriate allowance for the comparative resources lost by the stoppage.

Consider the following situation. Suppose Team 1 started well in the style of the renowned Sri Lankan 1996 World Cup winning team but the wheels fell off and they were 150/9 in 30 of the 50 overs. On average Team 1 would be all out shortly, leaving Team 2 to score at the rate of around 3 per over for their full 50 overs. If rain interrupted play at this point and 19 overs were lost per side, then on the resumption Team 1 would have only one over to survive and their run rate would then be close to 5 per over. By all the 'old' methods, for 31 overs also, Team 2 would have to score around 150, around 5 per over, to win - in other words Team 1 would have been greatly advantaged by the rain interruption changing a required scoring rate of 3 per over to 5 per over for Team 2. By the D/L method this advantage to Team 1 would be neutralised so that the target for Team 2 would be well below 150 in this circumstance, and fairly so, which maintains the advantage Team 2 had earned before the stoppage. In other words, and quite logically, Team 2 have to get fewer runs than Team 1 scored to win in the same number of overs.

6. When Team 2 have the more resource, you increase the target by applying the excess resource to the quantity known as G50, which is the average score for a 50-over innings. Why do you not use a different value of G50 according to ground conditions on the day?

The quantity G50 is not used in the Professional Edition as used from the start of 2004, enhanced targets being calculated by scaling Team 1's score in the direct ratio of the resources available to Team 2 and Team 1, so this question only applies to the Standard Edition.

The key is simplicity. We accept that the value of G50, perhaps, should be different for each country, or even for each ground, and there is no reason why any cricket authority may not choose the value it believes to be the most

appropriate. In fact it would be possible for the two captains to agree a value of G50 before the start of each match, taking account of all relevant factors.

However, we not believe that something that is only invoked if rain interferes with the game should impose itself on every game in this way. In any case, it should be realised that the value of G50 usually has very little effect on the revised target. If 250 were used, for instance, instead of 235, it is unlikely that the target would be more than two or three runs different.

In the Professional Edition, the option has been retained for an average 50-over score to be input for the purposes of predicting Team 1's eventual score from any point of their innings. This facility is purely for media or spectator interest and is not a part of the target calculation. Rather than use the default value of G50, commentators have the option of entering a 'best guess score' for 50 overs before the match starts, this taking account of ground conditions.

7. Why don't you take away wickets as well as overs to balance up teams' resources?

This is a simple idea but unfortunately it creates many difficulties and problems over implementation. First is how to apportion wickets deducted for overs lost bearing in mind not only the rate of deduction, (which might result in a fraction of a wicket!) but also the fact that the earlier wickets are usually more valuable than the later wickets. Second is the problem of deciding which batsmen shall not be allowed to bat. This could cause dissatisfaction not only to the batsmen excluded but also to the spectators who may have come to see particular players bat.

Because of such problems cricketing authorities have always regarded the idea of deducting wickets as an unacceptable option.

8. When Team 2's innings is interrupted, why do you not set a target that maintains the probability of achieving the target across the stoppage?

The problem with maintaining Team 2's probability of achieving their target across a stoppage is that it would mean that the target depended upon how many runs they had scored at the point of interruption. The more runs they had scored the more they would need, and the less they had scored the less they would need.

For instance, suppose that in three parallel matches, Team 1 score 250 in their 50 overs and Team 2's innings is interrupted after 20 overs with 10 overs lost in each case but with the scores at 60/2, 100/2 and 140/2. In all three cases the resources remaining were reduced from 67.3% to 52.4%, a loss of 14.9%, and so the target would be reduced by 14.9% of 250 to 213 (calculations based on the D/L tables for the Standard Edition.) If one set the revised target by scaling the runs still required by the resources remaining after and before the stoppage, which would maintain an equal probability of achieving the target, the targets would be different in the three cases, at 208, 217 and 226 respectively. It is surely unjust for a team to have to face a higher target because they had scored more runs. And an absurdity in the comparative results would be quite possible. Suppose, for instance, that the final scores of Team 2 in the three matches above are respectively 210, 216 and 225. The team scoring the most (225) have lost the match and the team scoring the least (210) have won.

The perceived problem with the way the revised target is set only arises when Team 2 are well ahead, or well behind, their par score. For instance, if they were 30 runs behind par at a stoppage and afterwards there was only time for a very few overs, they would still be 30 runs behind par and would have these few overs to make up the deficit, so their task may become virtually impossible. (If the match were washed out completely, they would have lost by 30 runs; nobody would dispute this.) It is Team 2's obligation to remain close to par to avoid losing if the match were terminated or their task being made more difficult if the innings were to be shortened.

9. How can Team 2 win by a number of runs?

When Team 2's innings is prematurely terminated by the weather the result is decided by comparing their actual score with their 'par score'. Whether Team 2 have won or lost, the difference of their score from the par score is the best measure available of the margin of victory and so it has been decided that the result should be given in terms of this margin in all such cases.

Even when a game is not prematurely terminated it is still possible to describe a victory for Team 2 in terms of a margin of runs. When they hit the winning run their score will be ahead of par by a certain margin and there is a good case for expressing the result in terms of this margin of runs in all cases. For instance, if Team 2 score the winning run off the last ball available, to describe their victory in terms of the wickets they had in hand gives no indication of its narrowness.

10. Suppose we are playing a 50-overs-per-side game where only 10 overs per side are needed for the match to count. Team 1 send in pinch hitters and get off to a wonderful start making 100 for no wicket after 10 overs. There is then a prolonged stoppage and when play can resume Team 1's innings is closed and there is only just time for Team 2 to face the minimum 10 overs. The D/L calculation (Standard Edition) gives Team 2's target as 151 in 10 overs. How can this practically impossible target be justified?

11. Same playing regulations as in Q10. Team 1 make the excellent score of 350 in their 50 overs and Team 2 start their reply cautiously and reach 40/0 in 10 overs. The heavens now open (or the floodlights fail) and further play is ruled impossible. Under the Standard Edition of the D/L system Team 2 are declared the winners by 3 runs. They were clearly already falling behind the run rate they needed even allowing for the fact that they had all their wickets intact, so how can this result be justified?

The above represent the two worst-case scenarios for treatment by the Standard Edition of the D/L method. They could only give such extreme consequences with playing regulations that allow a minimum of 10 overs per side for the match to count. But a similar, though less exaggerated, injustice could still arise even with a minimum of 20 overs per side required.

The Standard D/L method was devised so that anyone could perform the calculations with nothing more than the single table of resource percentages and a pocket calculator. This was regarded as an essential requirement for the method. It was considered that to be totally dependent on a computer would mean that the method could not be used universally, it would be vulnerable to computer failure and it would be more difficult to explain how the targets were calculated.

The use of the simplifying single table of resource percentages meant that actual performance must necessarily be assumed to be proportional to average performance. In 95% of cases this assumption is valid, but the assumption breaks down when an actual performance is far above the average, as is the case in the scenarios of Q10 and Q11 and in the record-breaking match between South Africa and Australia (March 2006) in which South Africa scored 438/9 to beat Australia's 434 in 50 overs.

This problem has now been overcome by use of the Professional Edition and this has been in general use for most matches at the top level of the game, including ODIs, since early in 2004. It can only be operated by using a computer program.

12. How can copies of the full tables be obtained?

The over-by-over tables for use with the Standard Edition may be found on the ICC website (see http://icccricket.yahoo.net/; go to 'more regulations' then 'Duckworth Lewis'. The full tables are available to all cricket authorities. The general public may obtain these by purchase of the booklet 'Your Comprehensive Guide to the D/L Method', which is available in electronic or hard-copy form from Acumen Books, tel: +44 (0) 1782 720753 orwww.acumenbooks.co.uk

13. How do the results of the Professional Edition differ from those of the previous (Standard) Edition?

For innings when the side batting first (Team 1) score at or below the average for top level cricket (which would be about 235 for an uninterrupted 50-over innings), the results of applying the Professional Edition are generally similar to those from the Standard Edition. For higher scoring matches, the results start to diverge and the difference increases the higher the first innings total. In effect there is now a different table of resource percentages for every total score in the Team 1 innings, and so a computer is essential to operate the system.

14. How do we know whether to use the Professional Edition or the Standard Edition?

The decision on which edition should be used is for the cricket authority which runs the particular competition. The Professional Edition can only be operated by running the computer software CODA.

Playing conditions for ODIs and for most countries' national competitions require that the Professional Edition is used where a computer can be guaranteed to be available for all matches; otherwise, or in the unlikely event of the computer failing to be available and operable, the Standard Edition is used (see Q1).

15. How does one obtain the computer software for operating the Professional Edition? And how does one obtain the resource percentage tables for the Professional Edition?

This software is not yet available for sale to the general public; when it is details will be available on the ICC website(http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net/). The tables of resource percentages, which would enable the calculations to

be carried out manually, can only be produced when Team 1's innings has been completed and then only by using the computer software.

16. Shouldn't the revised target take account of the quality of the players at the crease when play is stopped and of those who still have to bat? And should not account also be taken of the number of overs the top line bowlers will still have to bowl when play is resumed?

Although it is quite true that the extent to which the effective resources of the batting and bowling sides are depleted by a stoppage depends on the identities of the individual players affected, there is no way in which such factors could be incorporated into an objective rule for revising targets. It would require both teams to identify, before every match, the way the total quality of their sides, in respect of both batting and bowling, is divided between the individual team members. Furthermore, it would be necessary to input details of who was still to bowl and to bat and to perform the calculation based on this before a revised target can be computed. As well as leading to contention, such a procedure would be quite impractical to implement.

17. Does the D/L method take account of the various rules on fielding restrictions, eg PowerPlay overs?

If any allowance were made for the different scoring abilities for overs with fielding restrictions, then the identities of the different types of overs would have to be input into the target calculation, and this would be a considerable and unwelcome complication for the scorers and would prevent targets and par scores being known instantly they are required. But a thorough analysis of several thousand match scorecards covering the different rules in place over the years has shown that the effects of these rules on scoring patterns are not statistically significant. So no allowance for the effect of rules on fielding restrictions has been considered necessary.

18. Does the D/L method take account of 'substitute' rules?

It would be extremely difficult, and highly inconvenient to the scorers, to make an allowance for the recently trialled 'SuperSub' rule (whereby the 11 payers in a side of 12 that start the match must be declared before the toss) in carrying out D/L calculations. But as the rule was only experimental, no attempt was made to consider any modification. However, ICC decided in March 2006 that the rule would be discontinued.

Games between teams of 12 (and in some cases of 13) are still played in some competitions. Under this rule, 11 of the 12 (or 13) are nominated to bat and 11 are nominated to bowl. This affects the relative strengths of the ten partnerships in an innings and the D/L computer program CODA can be customised for such competitions so that due allowance for this effect is made.

19. Can the method be used for Twenty20 matches?

The method is used in Twenty20 matches in exactly the same way as in 50 overs/innings games. It is no different from a standard ODI reduced to 20 overs/side by rain before the start.

The Professional Edition was introduced in 2003 to allow for the increasing prevalence of higher scoring games. In essence this distributes the run-scoring expectations more evenly throughout the innings compared with the original (Standard) Edition which is more geared to average performances. Twenty20 games also have higher run scoring rates and experience has shown that the Professional Edition works particularly well in these games.

20. How can I get hold of the formula of the D/L method?

There are two academic papers that explain how the D/L tables are created. Whereas they provide the necessary explanation of the mathematics involved, due to commercial sensitivity, some fine details are omitted. But the papers will provide the information required for those cricket fans interested in the mathematics behind D/L.

Students of mathematics, and others, may be able to obtain the papers from their campus library, which may well stock the Journal of the Operational Research Society, or they may be able to obtain the papers from other sources. Otherwise the papers can be obtained from the journal's publishers Palgrave Macmillan (http://www.palgravejournals.com/pal/index.html).

Duckworth, F. C. and Lewis, A. J. (1998). A fair method of resetting the target in interrupted one-day cricket matches. Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 220-227.

Duckworth, F. C. and Lewis, A. J. (2004). A successful Operational Research intervention in one-day cricket. Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 55, No. 7, pp. 749-759

DuckworthLewis method
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the cricketing term. For the Irish pop group, see The Duckworth Lewis Method. In the sport of cricket, the DuckworthLewis method (D/L method) is a mathematical formulation designed to calculate the target score for the team batting second in a one-day cricket or Twenty20 cricketmatch interrupted by weather or other circumstance. It is generally accepted to be a fair and accurate method of setting a target score, but as it attempts to predict what would have happened had the game come to its natural conclusion, it generates some controversy. The D/L method was devised by two English statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis.[1]
Contents
[hide]

1 Examples

o
innings

1.1 Stoppage in first

1.2 Stoppage in

second innings

o
matches

1.3 Examples in T20

2 Theory 3 Application 4 History and creation 5 Updates 6 Criticism 7 Cultural influence 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

[edit]Examples [edit]Stoppage

in first innings

In the 4th India England ODI in the 2008 series, the first innings was interrupted by rain on two occasions, resulting in the match being reduced to 22 overs a side. India (batting first) made 166/4. England's target was therefore set by the D/L method at 198 from 22 overs. During the fifth ODI between India and South Africa in January 2011, rain halted play twice during the first innings. The match was reduced to 46 overs and South Africa scored 250/9. The D/L method was applied which adjusted the target to 268. As the number of overs was reduced in between South Africa's innings, this method takes into account what South Africa would have scored before the first interruption. Both examples illustrate how the D/L method is applied. In the case of the first match, as England knew they had only 22 overs the expectation is that they will be able to score more runs from those overs than India had from their (interrupted) innings. England made 178/8 from 22 overs, and so the match was listed as "India won by 19 runs (D/L method)".[2]

[edit]Stoppage

in second innings

A simple example of the D/L method being applied was the first One Day International (ODI) between India and Pakistan in their 2006 ODI series. India batted first, and were all out in the 49th over for 328. Pakistan, batting second, were 7 wickets down for 311 when bad light stopped play after the 47th over. In this example, Pakistan's target, had the match continued, was 18 runs in as many balls, with three wickets in hand. Considering the overall scoring rate throughout the match, this is a target most teams would be favoured to achieve. And indeed, application of the D/L method resulted in a target score of 304 at the end of the 47th over, with the officially listed result as "Pakistan won by 7 runs (D/L Method)".However, this was a controversial result and gave rise to a challenge posted by two Indian Engineers named Sourav Agarwalla and Ananyabrata Chakravorty, who went on to create RAM (Rule for Affected Matches) that has won them several prizes, though they are still looking to be recognised by the ICC.[3]

[edit]Examples

in T20 matches

During the 2010 ICC World T20, the D/L method was used in the group stage match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka scored 173/7 in 20 overs batting first and Zimbabwe were 29/1 in 5 overs when rain interrupted play. Sri Lanka won the match by 14 runs according to the D/L method.[4] On the same day, another group match between England and West Indies was also decided by the D/L method. England scored 191/5 in 20 overs, and rain interrupted play after 2.2 overs of the chase when West Indies had scored 30/0. According to the D/L method, West Indies were set a target of 60 runs in 6 overs, which they achieved with a ball to spare.[5] The then English captain Paul Collingwood heavily criticized the usage and appropriateness of the D/L method in T20 matches.[6]

[edit]Theory

The essence of the D/L method is 'resources'. Each team is taken to have two 'resources' to use to make as many runs as possible: the number ofovers they have to receive; and the number of wickets they have in hand.

At any point in any innings, a team's ability to score more runs depends on the combination of these two resources. Looking at historical scores, there is a very close correspondence between the availability of these resources and a team's final score, a correspondence which D/L exploits.[7] Using a published table which gives the percentage of these combined resources remaining for any number of overs (or, more accurately, balls) left and wickets lost, the target score can be adjusted up or down to reflect the loss of resources to one or both teams when a match is shortened one or more times. This percentage is then used to calculate a target (sometimes called a 'par score') that is usually a fractional number of runs. If the second team passes the target then the second team is taken to have won the match; if the match ends when the second team has exactly met (but not passed) the target (rounded down to the next integer) then the match is taken to be a tie. An example of such a tie was found in the one day international between England and India on 11 September 2011. This match was frequently interrupted by rain in the final overs, and a ball-by-ball calculation of the Duckworth-Lewis 'par' score played a key role in the tactical decisions made during those overs. At one point, India were ahead according to this calculation, during one rain delay (and would have won if play was unable to be resumed). At a second rain interval, England, who had scored some quick runs (precisely because they were aware of the need to get ahead in terms of D/L) would correspondingly have won if play hadn't resumed. Play was finally called off with just 7 balls of the match remaining, with England's score exactly at the Duckworth-Lewis 'par' score, resulting in a tied match. This example does show how crucial (and difficult) the decisions of the Umpires can be, in terms of assessing at exactly what point the rain is heavy enough to justify ceasing play. If they had done so one ball earlier, England would have been ahead on D/L, and so would have won the match (equally, if play had stopped one ball later, without England scoring off that ball, India would have won the match - indicating how finely-tuned D/L calculations can be in such situations).

[edit]Application
The Duckworth/Lewis method is fairly simple to apply, but requires a published reference table and some simple mathematical calculations. As with most non-trivial statistical derivations, the D/L method can produce results that are somewhat counterintuitive, and the announcement of the derived target score can provoke a good deal of second-guessing and discussion amongst the crowd at the cricket ground. This can also be seen as one of the method's successes, adding interest to a "slow" rain-affected day of play. Applied to 50-over matches, each team must face at least 20 overs before D/L can decide the game. In Twenty20 games, each side must face at least five overs.

[edit]History

and creation

The D/L method was devised by two British statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis. It was first used in international cricket in the second game of the 1996/7 Zimbabwe versus England One Day International series,

which Zimbabwe won by seven runs,[8] and was formally adopted by the International Cricket Council in 2001 as the standard method of calculating target scores in rain shortened one-daymatches. Various different methods had been used previously, including run-rate ratios, the score that the first team had achieved at the same point in their innings, and targets derived by totaling the best scoring overs in the initial innings. All these methods have flaws that are easily exploitable. For example, run-rate ratios take no account of how many wickets the team batting second have lost, but simply reflect how quickly they were scoring when the match was interrupted; so, if a team felt a rain stoppage was likely they could attempt to force the scoring rate without regard for the corresponding highly likely loss of wickets, skewing the comparison with the first team. Notoriously, the "best-scoring overs" method, used in the 1992 Cricket World Cup, left the South African cricket team requiring 21 runs from one ball (when the maximum score from one ball is generally six runs). Before a brief rain interruption, South Africa was chasing a target of 22 runs from 13 balls but, following the stoppage, the team's amended target became 21 (a reduction of only one run) to be scored off just one ball (a reduction of 12 balls).[9] The D/L method avoids this flaw: in this match, the revised D/L target would have been four runs to tie or five to win from the final ball.[10]

[edit]Updates
The published table that underpins the D/L method is regularly updated, using source data from more recent matches. From the 1999 Cricket World Cup match in Bristol between India and Kenya, Tony Lewis noticed that there was an inherent weakness in the formula used at the time that would give a noticeable advantage to the side chasing a total in excess of 350. A correction was very soon built into the formula and the software to correct this, by including a 'match' factor. However, this minor correction was not fully adopted by users until the 2004 update. Updating the source data in its own right would reflect the overall trend that one-day matches were achieving significantly higher scores than in previous decades, affecting the historical relationship between resources and runs. At the same time as this update, the D/L method was also split into a Professional Edition and a Standard Edition.[11] The main difference is that while the Standard Edition preserves the use of a single table and simple calculation suitable for use in any one-day cricket match at any level the Professional Edition uses substantially more sophisticated statistical modelling, and requires the use of a computer. The Professional Edition has been in use in all international one-day cricket matches since early 2004. In June 2009, it was reported that the D/L method would be reviewed for the Twenty20 format after its appropriateness was questioned in the quickest version of the game. Lewis was quoted admitting that "Certainly, people have suggested that we need to look very carefully and see whether in fact the numbers in our formula are totally appropriate for the Twenty20 game."[12]

[edit]Criticism

The D/L method has been criticized on the grounds that wickets are (necessarily) a much more heavily weighted resource than overs, leading to the suggestion that if teams are chasing big targets, and there is the prospect of rain, a winning strategy could be to not lose wickets and score at what would seem to be a "losing" rate (e.g. if the asking rate was 6.1, it could be enough to score at 4.75 an over for the first 2025 overs).[13] Another criticism is that the D/L method does not account for changes in the proportion of the innings for which field restrictions are in place compared to a completed match.[14] More common informal criticism from cricket fans and journalists of the D/L method is that it is overly complex and can be misunderstood.[15][16] For example, in a one-day match against England on 20 March 2009, the West Indies coach (John Dyson) called his players in for bad light, believing that his team would win by one run under the D/L method, but not realising that the loss of a wicket with the last ball had altered the DuckworthLewis score. In fact Javagal Srinath, the match referee, confirmed that the West Indies were two runs short of their target, giving the victory to England.

hisstory
1975 The first ever World Cup called the Prudential Cup was held in England and won by the West Indies. Led by Clive Lloyd and boasting the likes of Gordon Greenidge, Rohan Kanhai and a young Vivian Richards the men from the Caribbean brooked no opposition in their march towards world glory. Lloyd himself caned 102 off 85 balls in the final against Australia while Richards effected three run-outs as the Windies beat the Aussies by 17 runs to lift the trophy. 1979 Clive Lloyds men retained the title of world champions with an even more imperious display in the second edition. Both Australia and Pakistan had come close to beating them in 1975. This time, no quarter was given especially by the pace-bowling quartet of Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Colin Croft. On the batting front Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Alvin Kallicharran and Lloyd struck fear into the heart of the opposition. However, Collis King and Viv Richards stole the show with a violent 139-run partnership against England in the final as the Windies posted 286 in their 60 overs. England were ripped apart by Joel Garner who took five wickets for 38 runs and fell short by 92 runs. 1983 Having won only one game in the previous two world cups, India were rank outsiders in the third one. However, led by the legendary Kapil Dev, the unheralded Indians stormed into the final even beating West Indies in the process. They met the two-time defending champions again in the summit clash and were dismissed for a mere 183. Not even the most one-eyed Indian supporter would have given his side a chance but Indias medium-pacers tore into the feared Windies line-up. Lloyds men were reduced to 66 for five; Kapil accounting for Richards with a catch that has now become part of Indian crickets folklore. Mohinder Amarnath applied the finishing touches and when he dismissed Michael Holding with the score

on 140 the Indians had sealed one of the most unlikely victories of all-time. 1987 Bobby Simpson and Allan Border put together a gritty Aussie outfit that defied expectations to win the first world cup held outside England. On home soil, India and Pakistan were the favourites but lost to England and Australia respectively in the semi-finals. Batting first in the final Australia put up 253 in 50 overs with David Boons sedate 75 laying the foundation and Mike Velettas quick-fire 45 adding the flourish. England looked well in control until Mike Gattings reverse-sweep perhaps the most reviled shot in English cricket history led to their chase being derailed. Ultimately, they fell short by 7 runs as Australia took over the mantle of world champions. 1992 Pakistan shocked all by winning the Benson & Hedges World Cup in Australia. The shock was not because the team wasnt considered good enough but because they had been on the verge of being knocked out in the group stages. Dismissed for 74 against England, Imran Khans men looked destined for defeat until rain led to the match being abandoned. They managed to qualify for the last four on the back of three successive group wins before an Inzamam-ul-Haq hurricane (66 off 37 balls) helped them beat New Zealand in the semi-finals. The two old hands - Imran and Javed Miandad then helped the side post 249 in the final against England before a superb bowling attack (containing Wasim Akram, Aqib Javed, Imran and Mushtaq Ahmed) condemned the English to their third World Cup final defeat. Imrans tigers had conquered the world. 1996 The world cup returned to the sub-continent and Sri Lanka made history by becoming the only host nation to win the crickets most prestigious trophy. The Lankans were the dark horses for the tournament but gave notice of their title credentials by destroying India in a group game in New Delhi. In Muttiah Muralitharan and Kumara Dharmasena, they had spinners perfectly suited to the slow sub-continental surface. But the real sting was in the batting. Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana habitually destroyed bowlers before the likes of Arjuna Ranatunga, Roshan Mahanama and Aravinda de Silva put on the squeeze. De Silva, in particular, was simply sensational in this tournament his silky batting and flighted off-spinners grabbing the headlines. Mad Max saved his best for the last though taking three wickets in the final against Australia before putting the game to bed with a chanceless century to take his side to the title. Sri Lanka had arrived on the world stage in a big way. 1999 The return of the world cup to England also signaled the beginning of Australias stranglehold on the trophy. Through the 90s, the men from Down Under had been going from strength to strength. By the end of the decade their hegemony had begun to resemble that of the Windies in the 80s. There were still teams who could challenge them though none more so than South Africa. Between them the teams served up two great games. First Steve Waughs youve dropped the world cup son innings helped the Aussies into the semis where the two outfits played out a tie and perhaps the greatest one-day international of all time. Australia progressed into the final by dint of a superior run-rate. At Lords the scene of so many great cricket moments the men in baggy green, led by Shane Warne knocked Pakistan over for 132 and cantered to an eight-wicket win the first of three successive trophies.

2003 Australia left the rest of the cricket world trailing in their wake with an unbeaten run that culminated in a 125-run thrashing of India in the final. If 1999 had been a back-to-the-wall victory, 2003 was a majestic march to glory for the Aussies. In Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds, Michael Bevan, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee, they had players at the top of their game. It was little surprise then that they cast a colossal shadow over the rest of the opposition. Messrs Ponting and Martyn put on a magnificent 234-run unbeaten partnership as Australia all but sealed the title by setting India a target of 360 runs. Indian hopes of regaining the title they had won two decades ago were smashed when McGrath accounted for Sachin Tendulkar in the first over of the innings. Virender Sehwag smacked 82 off 81 balls but there was no way this Aussie juggernaut was going to be stopped. It was all yellow once again. 2007 Australia maintained their incredible world cup record with yet another unbeaten campaign this time in the West Indies. They had retained the services of most of their 2003 heroes who stepped up yet again when called upon. Glenn McGrath was man-of-the-series with the most wickets, Matthew Hayden scored the most runs while Adam Gilchrist put Ricky Pontings 2003 exploits in the shade. The opener struck 149 in 104 balls as the champions amassed 281 for four in a rain-curtailed 38 over final against Sri Lanka. The 1996 winners were never really in contention and fell 53 runs short of the target as darkness enveloped the Kensington Oval in Barbados. Australia had achieved an unprecedented hat-trick and scalped the third major sub-continental team in three finals.

Prior to the 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.[1] However, the International Olympic Committee cancelled cricket as an Olympic sport afterwards. The first attempt at arranging an international cricket competition was the 1912 Triangular Tournament. It was a Test cricket tournament played in England between all three Test playing nations at the time;England, Australia and South Africa. Due to poor weather and a lack of public interest, the experiment was not repeated.[2] From then on, international Test cricket teams only generally engaged in bilateral series 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,[3] 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 rainaborted Test match at Melbourne between England and Australia in 1971 and was played on the final

scheduled day. The forty over match (eight balls per over) was used to fill the time as compensation for the frustrated crowd.[4] 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.[5] [edit]The

Prudential World Cups

The Prudential Cup trophy

The Cricket World Cup was first held in 1975 in England, which was the only nation that was able to put forward the resources to stage an event of such magnitude.[6] The first three tournaments were officially known as the Prudential Cup after the financial services company Prudential plc who sponsored the event. The matches were of 60 overs per team and played in traditional white uniform and red balls. They were all played during the day. 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 by defeating Australia by 17 runs in the final. The next two World Cups held in 1979 and 1983 were again hosted by England. The 1979 Cricket World Cup saw the introduction of the ICC Trophy, a competition used to select non-Test playing teams for the World Cup.[7] Sri Lanka and Canada qualified through the ICC Trophy in 1979. West Indies again won the World Cup tournament, defeating England by 92 runs. At their meeting which followed the World Cup, the International Cricket Conference agreed to make the competition a four-yearly event. The 1983 event was hosted by England for a third consecutive time. By this time, Sri Lanka had become a Test playing nation, and Zimbabwe qualified through the ICC Trophy. India were crowned champions after upsetting the West Indies by 43 runs in the final. The odds of India winning the cup were quoted at 66 to 1 before the competition began.[5] This was India's splendid performance in the ICC world cup

history which was followed by the victory also in the world cup 2011 held in India, defeating Srilanka in the finals at Wankhede International stadium in Mumbai. [edit]19871996 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, the current standard, 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. It was the first tournament that the South African cricket team played in, following the end of the international sports boycott. Referred as the 'Cornered Tigers' at the time, Pakistan overcame a dismal start to emerge as winners, defeating England by 22 runs in the final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[8] The 1996 championship was held in the Indian subcontinent for the second time, with the inclusion of Sri Lanka as host of some of its group stage matches. It occurred behind the backdrop of political upheaval in world cricket, after a spiteful Sri Lankan tour of Australia in 1995/96. After the no balling of Sri Lankan off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan by Darrell Hair in a Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the tour ended in a spiteful ODI final in Sydney which saw physical contact between Glenn McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya, and the refusal of the Sri Lankans to shake hands at the end of the match. Some Australian players received death threats, which were compounded by a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo. Australia and West Indies refused to play their respective matches against Sri Lanka there, causing both matches to be awarded to Sri Lanka by default. After protracted negotiations, Kenya and Zimbabwe agreed to fulfil their fixtures in Sri Lanka. The Australian led boycott drew heavy criticism from subcontinental cricket officials, with former Indian captain Kapil Dev calling for Australia to be expelled. On the field, the abrasive and dry subcontinent surfaces resulted in batting conditions being optimal early in the innings before the ball became softer and more difficult to strike. Of the five leading run-scorers, four were opening batsmen, with Mark Waugh becoming the first batsman to score three centuries in a tournament. Spin bowlers were the most effective, with four of the leading six wicket-takers. The quarter finals saw co-hosts India and Pakistan meet in Bangalore. After Pakistani captain Wasim Akram withdrew due to injury, Ajay Jadeja struck 40 from the last two overs from Waqar Younis, setting Pakistan a target of 288. Pakistan were going well at 109/1, but after Aamer Sohail confronted taunted Indian bowler Venkatesh Prasad after striking a boundary, Prasad bowled him immediately after, sparking a collapse of 3/19, all to Prasad. After falling 39 runs short, the Government of Pakistan launched an inquiry into the performance, after angry protests by the public which left one person dead, and accusations of match-fixing were levelled at Wasim. In the other quarter finals, Australia and Sri Lanka defeated New Zealand and England respectively, while South Africa, who were previously undefeated, were upset by the West Indies. In the semi-final, Sri Lanka, headed towards a crushing victory over India at Eden Gardens (Calcutta) after their hosts slumped to 120/8 from being 98/1 in pursuit of 252, were awarded victory by default after riots broke out in protest against the Indian performance. In the other semi-final in Mohali, Australia defeated the West Indies after the Caribbean team lost their last seven wickets for 29 runs in their runchase. Sri Lanka went on to claim their inaugural championship by defeating the favourites Australia in

the final by seven wickets, held in Lahore. Tension remained between the two sides after the Australian series, with Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga declaring Australian leg spinner Shane Warne in the media before the match, and proceeding to poke his tongue at Warne during the match after hitting a six. Aravinda de Silva was named man of the match, as he was in the semi-final. [edit]Australian

treble

The 1999 event returned to England after sixteen years with some matches also held in Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. After losing two matches in the group phase, one of the favourites, Australia needed to avoid defeat in seven consecutive matches to win the title. They subsequently were required to defeat South Africa in the final Super Six match at Headingley. After South Africa had reached 271, Australia were struggling when captain Steve Waugh hit a ball straight to Herschelle Gibbs, who dropped it after trying to throw the ball into the air in celebration, eliciting the barb from Waugh that he had "dropped the World Cup". Waugh struck an unbeaten century to guide Australia to their target in their Super Six match against South Africa off the final ball of the match. Australia then faced South Africa again in the semi-final and posted a target of 213. South Africa needed nine runs from the final over with one wicket remaining, with man of the tournament Lance Klusener on strike. He struck the first two balls to the fence, leaving one run from the remaining four balls. However, a mix-up between Klusener and Allan Donald on the fourth ball saw Donald drop his bat and be stranded mid-pitch to be run out. The match was a tie, allowing Australia to advance to the final due to earlier results. In the other semi-final, Pakistan, who had qualified first in both the group and Super Six phase, defeated New Zealand by nine wickets. In the final Australia dismissed Pakistan for 132 and reached the target in just over 20 overs, with eight wickets in hand.

A large crowd of over 10,000 fans welcome to the Australian team on completing the first World Cup hat-trick - Martin Place, Sydney.

South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup. The number of teams participating in the event increased from twelve to fourteen. Because of political pressure and security concerns respectively, Zimbabwe and Kenya were awarded their matches against England and New Zealand respectively, after the latter teams forfeited the matches. Kenya's victories against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, among others, along with New Zealand's forfeit helped them get a Semi-final berth against India, the best result by an associate. India went on to defeat the Kenyans to set up a final against Australia in Johannesburg, who had defeated Sri Lanka in the other Semi-final. In the final, Australia made 359 runs for the loss of two wickets, the largest ever total in a final, to defeat India by 125 runs.[9]

In 2007 the tournament was hosted by the West Indies; the Cricket World Cup became the first such tournament to be hosted on all six populated continents- Europe (1975, 1979, 1983, 1999); Asia (1987, 1996); Australasia (1992); Africa (2003); North and South America (2007).[10] Ireland making their World Cup debut tied with Zimbabwe and defeated Pakistan to progress to the second round, where they went on to defeating Bangladesh to get promoted to the main ODI table.[11] Following their defeat to Ireland, the Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room; contrasting reports from different sources say that he was either murdered or died of natural causes.[12]Australia defeated Sri Lanka in the final by 53 runs (D/L), in farcical light conditions, extending their undefeated run in the World Cup to 29 matches and winning three straight World Cups.[13] [edit]2011 Main article: 2011 Cricket World Cup [edit]Historical

formats of final tournament

The number of teams in and the format of the final tournament has varied considerably over the years. In summary: # of matches

Year

Host

Teams

Round 1

Latter stages

1975 England

15

2 groups of 4(play each other once)

knockout of 4 teams

1979 England

15

2 groups of 4(play each other once)

knockout of 4 teams

1983 England

27

2 groups of 4(play each other twice)

knockout of 4 teams

1987 India/Pakistan

27

2 groups(play each knockout of 4 teams other twice)

1992 Australia/New Zealand 9

39

all 9 teams play each other once

knockout of 4 teams

1996 India/Pakistan/Sri

12

37

2 groups of 6(play

knockout of 8 teams

Lanka

each other once)

1999 England

12

42

2 groups of 6(play each other once)

round robin of 6 (Super6)(play other groups' teams once), knockout of 4 teams

South Africa 2003 /Zimbabwe/Kenya

14

54

2 groups of 7(play each other once)

1 group of 6 (Super6)(play other groups' teams once), knockout of 4 teams

2007 West Indies

16

51

4 groups of 4(play each other once)

1 group of 8 (Super8)(play other groups' teams once), knockout of 4 teams

2011

India/Sri Lanka/Bangladesh

14

49

2 groups of 7

knockout of 8 teams

2015 Australia/New Zealand 14 [edit]Explanation [edit]Early format

49

2 groups of 7

knockout of 8 teams

The format of the Cricket World Cup has changed greatly over the course of its history. The first four tournaments had eight teams each, divided into two groups of four teams each. There were two stages, a group stage and a knockout stage. In the 1975 and 1979 Cricket World Cups, each team played a roundrobin, while in the following two tournaments, each team played the rest in their group twice. The top two teams in each group played the semi-finals and the winners of the semi-finals played against each other in the final. [edit]Trial Formats In the 1992 Cricket World Cup, all teams 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 Cricket World Cup, the number of teams increased from nine to twelve and were divided into two groups. The top four teams of each group qualified for the knockout stage this time, which also included quarter-finals. [edit]Super stage Era The 1999 Cricket World Cup tournament had a similar group stage format, but there were dramatic changes in the second stage with a "Super Six" round replacing 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 against 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 played 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. The number of participants rose to fourteen, with 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.[14] The 2007 Cricket World Cup featured 16 teams allocated into four groups of four. Eleven teams having One Day International status qualified automatically for the tournament while the other five teams were selected from the ICC Trophy. Within each group, the teams played each other in a round-robin format and the top two teams advanced to the "Super 8" round. The eight remaining teams then played in a round-robin format, except that they did not play the other team that advanced from their respective group.[15] The top four teams from the Super 8 round advanced to the semi-finals and the winners of the semi-finals then contested the final. [edit]Return to a Quarter-Final format In 2007, the Super 8 Round suffered from lack of crowds as a result of the tournament being too long (24 matches), but also due to big teams like India and Pakistan being knocked out of the tournament in the Group Stage.(2007 Cricket world cup.) As a result the ICC decided to exclude 2 teams from the 2011 tournament - dividing 14 teams into two groups of 7 from which the top 4 teams from each group qualified for the Quarter Finals, this resulted in the addition of more matches into the earlier stages of the tournament as opposed to the 2nd stage. Also adding more knockout matches(7 as opposed to the 3 in 2007) to increase interest in TV audiences

International Cricket Council

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

International Cricket Council

Official logo of the ICC

Motto

Great Sport Great Spirit

Formation

15 June 1909

Headquarters

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Membership

105 member countries

President

Sharad Pawar

Key people

Haroon Lorgat (CEO)

Website

official site

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989. The ICC has 105 members: 10 Full Members that play official Test matches, 35 Associate Members, and 60 Affiliate Members. The ICC is responsible for the organisation and governance of cricket's major international tournaments, most notably the Cricket World Cup. It also appoints the umpires and referees that officiate at all sanctioned Test matches, One Day International and Twenty20 Internationals. It promulgates the ICC Code of Conduct, which sets professional standards of discipline for international cricket,[1] and also co-ordinates action against corruption and match-fixing through its Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU). The ICC does not control bilateral fixtures between member countries (which include all Test matches), it does not govern domestic cricket in member countries, and it does not make the laws of the game, which remain under the control of the Marylebone Cricket Club. Sharad Pawar, former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India is the President of the Council who succeeded David Morgan the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board. The current CEO is Haroon Lorgat.
Contents
[hide]

1 History 2 Location 3 Rules and regulation 4 Tournaments and income generation

5 Umpires and referees 6 Members 7 Regional bodies 7.1 Defunct Bodies 8 Competitions and awards 9 Anti-corruption and security 10 Global Cricket Academy 11 Cricket World Cup 12 ICC Cricket World Program 13 Criticism 14 See also 15 References 16 External links

[edit]History
On 15 June 1909 representatives from England, Australia and South Africa met at Lord's and founded the Imperial Cricket Conference. Membership was confined to the governing bodies of cricket within theBritish Empire where Test cricket was played. West Indies, New Zealand and India were elected as Full Members in 1926, doubling the number of Test-playing nations to six. That year it was also agreed to make a change in membership, with election being for; "governing bodies of cricket in countries within the Empire to which cricket teams are sent, or which send teams to England." However the United States did not meet these criteria and was not made a member.[2] After the formation of Pakistan in 1947, it was given Test status in 1952, becoming the seventh Test-playing nation. In May 1961 South Africa left the Commonwealth and therefore lost membership. In 1965, the Imperial Cricket Conference was renamed the International Cricket Conference and new rules adopted to permit the election of countries from outside the Commonwealth. This led to the expansion of the Conference, with the admission of Associate Members. Associates were each entitled to one vote, while the Foundation and Full Members were entitled to two votes on ICC resolutions. Foundation Members retained a right of veto. Sri Lanka was admitted as a Full Member in 1981, returning the number of Test-playing nations to seven. In 1989, new rules were adopted and International Cricket Conference changed its name to the current name, the International Cricket Council. South Africa was re-elected as a Full Member of the ICC in 1991, after the end of apartheid; this was followed in 1992 by the admission of Zimbabwe as the ninth Test-playing nation.

[edit]Location

The ICC's offices in Dubai.

From its formation the ICC had Lord's Cricket Ground as its home, and from 1993 had its offices in the "Clock Tower" building at the nursery end of the ground. The independent ICC was funded initially by commercial exploitation of the rights to the World Cup of One Day International cricket. As not all Member countries had double-tax agreements with England, it was necessary to protect cricket's revenues by creating a company [ICC Development (International) Pty Ltd - known as IDI] outside the UK. This was established in Jan 1994 and was based in Monaco. For the remainder of the nineties, the administration of IDI was a modest affair. But with the negotiation of a bundle of rights to all ICC events from 20012008, revenues available to International cricket and the ICC member countries rose substantially. This led to a growth in the number of commercial staff employed by IDI in Monaco. It also had the disadvantage that the Council's cricket administrators, who remained at Lord's, were separated from their commercial colleagues in Monaco. The Council decided to seek ways of bringing all of their staff together in one office whilst protecting their commercial income from tax. The option of staying at Lord's was investigated and a request was made, through Sport England, to the British Government to allow the ICC to have all its personnel (including those working on commercial matters) in London - but be given special exemption from paying UK corporation tax on its commercial income. The British Government was unwilling to create a precedent and would not agree to this request. As a consequence the ICC examined other locations and eventually settled on the emirate of Dubai in theUnited Arab Emirates. In August 2005 the ICC moved its offices to Dubai, and subsequently closed its offices at Lord's and Monaco. The move to Dubai was made after an 11-1 vote by the ICC's Executive Board in favour.[3] Whilst the principal driver of the ICC's move to Dubai was the wish to bring its main employees together in one tax efficient location, a secondary reason was the wish to move offices closer to the increasingly important new centres of cricketing power in South Asia. Lord's had been a logical venue when the ICC had been administered by the MCC (a situation that lasted until 1993). But the growing power of India and Pakistan in world cricket had made the continued control of international cricket by a British private members club

(the MCC) anachronistic and unsustainable. A direct consequence of the changes and reforms instituted in 1993 was eventually to be the move away from Lord's to a more neutral venue.[4]

[edit]Rules

and regulation

The International Cricket Council overlooks playing conditions, bowling reviews, and other ICC regulations. Even though the ICC doesn't have copyright to the laws of cricket and only the MCC may change the laws, nowadays this would usually only be done after discussions with the game's global governing body, the ICC. The ICC also has a "Code of Conduct" to which teams and players in international matches are required to adhere. Where breaches of this code occur the ICC can apply sanctions, usually fines. In 2008 the ICC imposed 19 penalties on players.[5]

[edit]Tournaments

and income generation

Variant ICC Logo

The ICC generates income from the tournaments it organises, primarily the Cricket World Cup, and it distributes the majority of that income to its members. Sponsorship and television rights of the World Cup brought in over US$1.6 billion between 2007 and 2015, by far the ICCs main source of income.[6][7] In the nine month accounting period to 31 December 2007 the ICC had operating income of USD 12.66 million, mainly from member subscriptions and sponsorship. In contrast event income was USD 285.87 million, including USD 239 million from the 2007 World Cup. There was also investment income of USD 6.695 million in the period. The ICC has no income streams from the bilateral international cricket matches (Test matches, One Day International and Twenty20 Internationals), that account for the great majority of the international playing schedule, as they are owned and run by its members. It has sought to create other new events to augment its World Cup revenues. These include the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC Super Series played in Australia in 2005. However these expansion has not been as successful as the ICC hoped. The Super Series was widely seen as a failure and is not expected to be repeated, and India called for the Champions Trophy to be scrapped in 2006[8] The Champions Trophy 2004 event was referred to in Wisden 2005 by the editor as a "turkey of a tournament" and a "fiasco"; although the 2006 edition was seen as a greater success due to a new format.[9][10] The ICC World Twenty20, first played in 2007, was a success. The ICC's current plan is to have an international tournament every year, with a Twenty20 World Cup played in even number years, the World Cup

continuing to be held the year before the Olympic Games, and the ICC Champions Trophy in the remaining year of the cycle. This cycle will begin in 2010, thus the Twenty20 World Cup will be played for a second consecutive year in that year.

[edit]Umpires

and referees

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011)
The ICC appoints international umpires and Match referees who officiate at all sanctioned Test matches, OneDay Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals. The ICC operates 3 panels of umpires: namely the Elite Panel, the International Panel, and the Associates and Affiliates Panel. As of January 2009, the Elite Panel includes eleven umpires. In theory, two umpires from the Elite Panel officiate at every Test match, whilst one Elite Panel umpire stands in ODI matches together with an umpire from the International Panel. In practice, members of the International Panel stand in occasional Test matches, as this is viewed as a good opportunity to see whether they can cope at the Test level, and whether they should be elevated to the Elite Panel. The Elite Panel are full-time employees of the ICC, although do still, very occasionally umpire first-class cricket in their country of residence. The average, annual, officiating schedule for Elite Umpires is 12 Test matches and 15 ODIs, a potential on-field workload of 75 days per year. The International Panel is made up of officials nominated from each of the ten Test-playing cricket boards. The Panel Members officiate in ODI matches in their home country, and assist the Elite Panel at peak times in the cricket calendar when they can be appointed to overseas ODI and Test matches. International Panel members also undertake overseas umpiring assignments such as the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup in order to improve their knowledge and understanding of overseas conditions, and help them prepare for possible promotion onto the Elite Panel. Some of these umpires also officiates in the Cricket World Cup. Each of the Test cricket boards nominates a "third umpire" who can be called upon to review certain on-field decisions through instant television replays. All third umpires are first-class umpires in their own county, and the role is seen as a step onto the International Panel, and then the Elite Panel. The newest panel of umpires, set up in February 2005, is the Associates and Affiliates Umpires Panel. It was designed to offer a pathway to top level umpiring for officials from the ICC's 104 Associate and Affiliate Member countries. As of January 2009, it has 10 members from countries such as Nepal and Fiji. These umpires officiate ODIs between Associate Members, ICC Intercontinental Cup matches and other Associate and Affiliate tournaments such as the ICC World Cup Qualifier. There is also an Elite Panel of ICC Referees who act as the independent representative of the ICC at all Test and ODI matches. As of January 2009, it has 6 members, all highly experienced former international cricketers. The Referees do not have the power to report players or officials (which has to be done by the umpires), but

they are responsible for conducting hearings under the ICC Code of Conduct and imposing penalties as required at matches, ranging from an official reprimand to a lifetime ban from cricket. Decisions can be appealed, but the original decision is upheld in most cases.

[edit]Members

ICC member nations. Full Members, that play Test cricket, are shown in orange, Associate Members in yellow and Affiliate Members in purple.

Main article: List of International Cricket Council members The ICC has three classes of membership: Full Members, the ten governing bodies of teams that play official Test matches; Associate Members, the 34 governing bodies in countries where cricket is firmly established and organised but which do not qualify for Full Membership; and Affiliate Members, the 60 governing bodies in countries where the ICC recognises that cricket is played according to the Laws of Cricket.

[edit]Regional

bodies

These regional bodies aim to organise, promote and develop the game of cricket:

African Cricket Association Americas Cricket Association Asian Cricket Council ICC East Asia-Pacific European Cricket Council

[edit]Defunct

Bodies

East and Central Africa Cricket Council West Africa Cricket Council

[edit]Competitions

and awards

The ICC organises various First-Class and One-Day cricket competitions:

First Class

ICC Test Championship (test league) ICC Intercontinental Cup (first class for non test nations)

One Day

ICC ODI Championship (one-day league) ICC Cricket World Cup (50 over tournament) ICC World Twenty20 (twenty20 tournament) ICC Champions Trophy (miniature version of the world cup) ICC World Cricket League (league for associate & affiliate members) ICC World Cup Qualifier (qualifier for the world cup)

The ICC has instituted the ICC Awards to recognise and honour the best international cricket players of the previous 12 months. The inaugural ICC Awards ceremony was held on 7 September 2004, in London.

[edit]Anti-corruption

and security

The ICC has also had to deal with drugs and bribery scandals involving top cricketers. Following the corruption scandals by cricketers connected with the legal and illegal bookmaking markets, the ICC set up an Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) in 2000 under the retired Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, Lord Condon. Amongst the corruption on which they have reported was that of former South African captain Hansie Cronje who had accepted substantial sums of money from an Indian bookmaker for under-performing or ensuring that certain matches had a pre-determined result. Similarly, the former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja were investigated, found guilty of match-fixing, and banned from playing cricket (for life and for five years, respectively). The ACSU continues to monitor and investigate any reports of corruption in cricket and protocols have been introduced which for example prohibit the use of mobile telephones in dressing rooms. Prior to the 2007 Cricket World Cup ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed warned against any corruption and said that the ICC would be vigilant and intolerant against it.[11] In 2010, 3 Pakistani players, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt were found to be guilty of spot-fixing, and were banned for 5 years, 7 years and 10 years respectively.

[edit]Global

Cricket Academy

Main article: ICC Global Cricket Academy The ICC Global Cricket Academy (GCA) is located at Dubai Sports City in the United Arab Emirates. The GCA's facilities include two ovals, each with 10 turf pitches, outdoor turf and synthetic practice facilities, indoor

practice facilities including hawk eye technology and a cricket specific gymnasium. Rod Marsh has been appointed as the Academy's Director of Coaching. The opening, originally planned for 2008, took place in 2010.

[edit]Cricket

World Cup

Main article: ICC Cricket World Cup The ICC Cricket World Cup is held every 4 years and is one of the biggest cricket events in the history of the sport. It is watched by millions from all over the Cricket Nations. The most recent World Cup was held between the 19th of February 2011 and the 2nd of April 2011[12]

[edit]ICC

Cricket World Program

Main article: ICC Cricket World Program The International Cricket Council telecasts a weekly program on television called ICC Cricket World. It is produced by Sportsbrand. It is a weekly 30 minute program providing the latest cricket news, recent cricket action including all Test and One-Day International matches, as well as off-field features and interviews

[edit]Criticism
Sports journalist Peter Della Penna has criticized the ICC for what he has perceived as attempts to minimize reports of security issues relating to unruly fans at matches.[13]

[edit]See

also

Television rights
With the Cricket World Cup returning to Asia after 14 years, there is a lot of excitement and expectations from the series. The last time the World Cup was played in Asia was in 1996, where Sri Lanka took home the Cup. The 10th World Cup, which will commence from February 19, 2011, will be jointly hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Pakistan has been excluded from the hosting countries due to security concerns. 2011, the Game Changer

Quite a few changes have been introduced by the Indian Cricketing Council (ICC) this time to ensure a steady level of interest in the tournament. Compared to 2007, the format is shorter with the number of matches being brought down to 49 from 51, out of which 29 matches will be hosted by India, 12 by Sri Lanka and eight matches will be hosted by Bangladesh. The length of the tournament has also been shortened by a week to six weeks, with the last final match

being hosted at the renovated Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on April 2, 2011. The format guarantees six India matches before the quarter final matches begin and ensures Indias presence in the tournament until March 20, 2011. ESPN Software India is the official carrier and broadcaster for the tournament and has an eight-year term deal with the ICC, which lends the network broadcasting rights for one World Cup, one T20 series and one Championship League each year. The deal is pegged at about $1.1 billion and the network, including ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket, will telecast all 49 matches of the ICC World Cup 2011. This includes 37 matches, which will be simultaneously telecast on STAR Cricket. ESPN-STAR Sports will take this tournament to more than 181 territories around the world with day matches starting as early as 9.30 am IST and day-night matches starting at 2.30 pm. There will be many firsts this year ESPN will stream the matches live in 3G on mobile, cricket programming, content production and viewing in will be available in HD and the Decision Review System (DRS) will be introduced for the first time for any ICC tournament. In terms of sponsorships, eight brands have come on board as partnering or associate sponsors with brands such as Castrol spending up to 30 per cent of their annual marketing budgets reserved for the cricket season, as per media reports. List of sponsors that have come on board include Sony India, Hero Honda and Vodafone as the joint presenting sponsors and Airtel DTH, Nokia, Maruti Suzuki, Philips and Pepsico as the associate sponsors. Also, a number of leading brands across categories have come on board as spot buyers. The World Cup will be followed by the fourth season of the Indian Premier League after a six-day gap.

Media reports estimate brand spends on both cricket events to exceed Rs 3,000 crore. ESPN-STAR Sports is expected to earn about Rs 750 crore, while earnings of SET MAX (IPLs broadcaster) are valued at about Rs 800-850 crore as per published media reports. Commenting on the high interest and advertising value luring marketers to associate with cricket, Vikram Sakhuja, CEO - South Asia, GroupM, said, The reason for any sponsor to associate with the game is the high levels of interest, passion and good value propositions lent by the two marquee properties. Cricket continues to be the golden goose and as long as the premiums are justified, the price values make sense. We have to walk towards maximising the format and be careful not to kill the goose. Touching on some of the issues surrounding the monetisation for marketers, Sanjay Behl, Group Head, Brand and Marketing Operations, Reliance Communications, remarked, Initially, the rates were ridiculously high. I agree that cricket is the golden goose. Lets not be irrational. Reliance is in an eight-year deal with ICC because we have faith in the body and faith in the sport that it will stay and deliver. We got in a deal with ICC as a commercial partner before the IPL came. Our expectations as a commercial partner are that a set of forecast deliverables are honoured. As a marketer or a businessman, we could put million dollars on cricket or distribute it across other events. We need to move from partnering to deep engaging relationship building so as to maximise the execution of marketing plans in all areas. Shashi Sinha, CEO, Lodestar UM India, expressed the need to leverage audiences and remarked that cricket would dominate the scene, At the global sports front, cricket is big, but we have a long way to go. Both the World Cup and IPL are high value properties. We have seen the World Cup grow from Rs 300 crore to Rs 1,600-1,700 crore.

Rating

Records

As per data findings by TAM Media Research for C&S 4+ markets across India, cricket dominated television viewership with up to 176 million viewers in 2010 with an average time spent having slightly decreased since 2003. World Cup viewership numbers have risen from 57 million to 105 million from 2003 and 2007, the year that saw a decline in fan support due to the early exit of the Indian team. Advertising volumes and number of brands, too, have doubled in 2007 across channels SET MAX, SAB TV and PIX, totalling up to about 115 hours of advertising with 267 brands participating. About 50 per cent of the advertising was shared by top three sectors auto (21 per cent), food and beverages (16 per cent) and telecom products (14 per cent). TAM also highlights compelling statistics that prove that with certain components in place, such as India playing, key players performing well, the World Cup being played in the Subcontinent (therefore with timings suited for India), and so on, Indian viewers interest level in the game remains high. Such findings only indicate that the frenzy and scale of the tournament this year will hit new highs in many areas. Fourteen teams are taking part in the 2011 World Cup, divided into two groups of seven teams each. Group A contains Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Canada, while Group B includes India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland and the Netherlands. The season will begin with the opening match between India and Bangladesh at Dhaka.

For connoisseurs of the game, the last day of the Cape Town Test, January 6, 2011, epitomised what Test cricket is all about. Team India, faced with an insurmountable target, played out for a draw as the South African bowlers led by fire-breathing Dale Steyn hurled short-pitched deliveries at Indian ribcages. Even as the Indian batsmen ducked and weaved, 8,000 kilometres away, some of their former teammates - Parthiv Patel, Mohammad Kaif, Murali Karthik and Irfan Pathan walked down a makeshift ramp. It was an event to announce the launch of value retailer Big Bazaar's merchandise for the International Cricket Council or ICC World Cup. The ICC is the game's governing body. For the 10-minute "appearance" and a 10-yard walk down the elevated platform, the cricketers would have pocketed a couple of lakh rupees each - not a fat sum, considering what cricketers make these days. But barely 48 hours later, on January 8, Delhi Daredevils picked up Irfan Pathan at an auction for the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League or

IPL for Rs 8.74 crore. Within a day, the others, too, were picked by various teams for sums varying between $130,000 (Rs 58.5 lakh) and $400,000 (Rs 1.8 crore). The great Indian cricket tamasha of 2011 kicked off in style for these cricketers. And with back-toback big-ticket tournaments, the ICC World Cup and IPL-4, lined up, it can only get better. Over $1.5 billion worth of commerce is likely to happen around these tournaments, making it the biggest year for cricket ever. According to analysts, the bulk of this, about $1 billion, will be in the form of sponsorship revenue and TV rights for both tournaments. About Rs 1,000 crore is being spent on refurbishing stadiums in the Indian subcontinent. "In India alone - the World Cup will also be played in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - the amount spent is Rs 750 crore," says Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI, Secretary N. Srinivasan. "This includes sprucing up of stadia in Chennai (Rs 180 crore), Mumbai (Rs 250 crore), New Delhi (Rs 100 crore) and Kolkata (Rs 60 crore)." A brand new stadium is being built in Nagpur for Rs 100 crore, he adds.

In return, the ICC will pay local cricket boards $750,000, (Rs 3.3 crore), for every match hosted, says Ratnakar Shetty, Tournament Director for the 2011 World Cup. "We expect over a million people to watch matches in stadiums during the World Cup," says Campbell Jamieson, General Manager, ICC. Including IPL, calculations reveal that over Rs 400 crore

worth of tickets will be sold between February and July in India alone. Players are also charging a lot more. "Even younger players like Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina are asking for Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh for a short-term (year-long) brand endorsement deal. They know that with these big tournaments coming up, companies are desperate to add brand ambassadors and shoot commercials," says the CEO of an FMCG company. Industry watchers point out that in 2011 alone Indian players are expected to make upwards of Rs 100 crore in brand endorsements. Add to this the nearly Rs 500 crore that IPL teams will pay as salaries to players, coaches, consultants, managers and you might think that cricket these days is less about runs and more about the money. For those keen to ride on the cricket wagon, the sheer scale of the game is the biggest attraction. Consider, for instance, sports merchandising, which has not been a success in India because of high price points. "How many Team India jerseys can you sell when you price a unit at Rs 2,500?" asks an industry watcher. But that might change with Big Bazaar bagging the contract to be the ICC World Cup's official merchandising partner. "We hope to sell a million units of merchandise during the ICC World Cup," says Sanjeev Agarwal, Joint CEO, Big Bazaar, whose range We hope to sell a million units of merchandise during the ICC World of World Cup clothing starts at Rs 199. Cup Also, with the ICC World Cup being broadcast in high Sanjeev Agarwal, Joint CEO, Big definition, or HD, format for the first time ever, Bazaar electronics companies are expected to launch marketing campaigns to push LCD models. "The LCD TV market is doubling year-on-year anyhow. The cricket season might just add to that growth," says L.K. Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, LG India. The company, which has a marketing budget of Rs 800 crore, spent just Rs 45 crore to Rs 60 crore around cricket-related events in 2010. "In 2011, we expect to spend Rs 80 crore to Rs 100 crore in marketing and advertising expenses related to cricket," adds Gupta. Similarly, Castrol India COO Ravi Kirpalani estimates that a fourth of the company's Rs 150crore marketing budget will be spent on cricket this year. This includes a two-year brand endorsement deal with star batsman Sachin Tendulkar. Even though Castrol officials refuse to comment on the size of the deal, market watchers told BT that Tendulkar would have charged between Rs 8 crore and Rs 12 crore. The World Cup Hoopla

Both Castrol and LG have long-term sponsorship contracts with ICC, which will give them in-stadia visibility until 2015 at ICC events of their choosing, including the ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup, and the Champions Trophy. In fact, the ICC has inked similar long-term sponsorship contracts with 10 companies, including Reliance Communications, Pepsi, Hero Honda, Reebok and MoneyGram. Market watchers point out that the deals, signed in the last three years, vary anywhere between $10 million and $100 million depending on the duration and depth of the engagement. Such contracts, along with television rights for ICC events, which ESPN Star Sports bagged for $1.1 billion for nine years in 2006, form the bulk of ICC'S revenues. Analysts expect the ICC to pocket Rs 1,500 crore from marketers and TV rights from ESPN Star Sports this year alone. ICC refused to comment on revenues. The World Cup and the IPL together are expected to rake in over Rs 1,500 crore worth of revenues for their respective broadcasters - ESPN Star Sports (ICC World Cup) & SET MAX (IPL), according to Prasanth Kumar, Managing Partner (South Asia) at GroupM Central Trading Group, India's largest media buying entity. If one were to add India's overseas tours of England and the West Indies, that number might swell to Rs 2,000 crore. In terms of viewership, too, this might be cricket's biggest year. From the time the $3-million opening ceremony of the World Cup kicks off in Dhaka on February 17, cricket is expected to attract the most eyeballs in Indian television ever within a single year. "India has the world's biggest audience for cricket," explains London-based Kevin Alavy, Director, Futures Sports, a sports media research agency. "The World Cup is also being held in India (after 15 years). And arguably, you have the best team in the world. So a lot of people are likely to watch the World Cup and cricket, in general, this year," adds Alavy. Interestingly, ICC plans to reach out to a billion people through the live broadcast of the Cup across 180 regions. Given these numbers, it is hardly surprising that some of the ICC event sponsors such as Pepsi have also become broadcast sponsors on ESPN Star. It's not that spots on ESPN for the World Cup are cheap. Those engaged in media buying told BT that a 10-second advertising spot during the World Cup is likely to cost Rs 3.5 lakh; despite that, the channel had sold close to 70 per cent of its inventory until early January. ESPN Star Sports Managing Director Manu Sawhney refuses to talk numbers but argues that the World Cup remains a compelling proposition for advertisers.

"We have signed on Sony and Hero Honda as our presenting sponsors and the likes of Maruti-Suzuki, Nokia, Airtel DTH as associate sponsors , " says Sawhney.

World Cup Vs IPL Rohit Gupta, President (Network Sales) at Multi Screen Media, or MSM, the company that broadcasts the Sony bouquet of channels, is not too optimistic about the future of ODIs in their current format. Gupta would know as the last two editions of the ICC World Cup were broadcast on SET MAX, an MSM channel. During the last edition, when India exited in the first round of the tournament, advertisers asked for their money back and the issue was settled after the Adver tising Agencies Association of India intervened. Not quite cricket When Kevin Alavy was working in Russia, people asked him: "How come ice hockey is not the most watched game in the world?" Alavy, who heads research at sports media consultancy, Futures Sports, uses this anecdote to explain to Indians who find it hard to believe that cricket does not figure among the most watched sports globally. "It's because the other fivesixth of the world is watching and playing other sports," explains Alavy. Last year, the FIFA World Cup final was watched by an average live global audience of 329 million people; the Australia-Sri Lanka ICC World Cup 2007 final match was watched by just 11 million, according to Futures Sports research. The two main reasons for cricket's poor show are that the game is played and followed in fewer countries. "The other reason is that, unlike FIFA, which aims to maximise viewership by selling telecast rights to free-toair channels across the world, ICC sells its rights to pay channels. If FIFA were to do the same thing, only a 100 million average live audience would have watched the FIFA World Cup," says Alavy.

It's a point of view most media planners subscribe to. "According to our estimates, the World Cup could attract Rs 600 crore to Rs 650 crore in advertising (spend)," says GroupM's Kumar. He believes that the figure will be higher for the IPL. Media planners reckon that IPL advertising could touch Rs 900 crore - in IPL-3, advertising spend stood at Rs 750 crore. The World Cup is hamstrung by the fact that in the first month of the tournament India plays just six matches. Even if India makes it to the finals, the Indian team would play just nine matches in a 45-day long tournament. The IPL has a total of 74 matches played over 51 days. MSM's Gupta also says that IPL's improving reach - 143 million in 2010 from 102 million in 2008 - has helped it tap sponsors and advertisers even six months before the tournament. It

even sold spots for the live auction of players at Rs 50,000 per 10 seconds. Videocon and Vodafone have coughed up an estimated Rs 50 crore each as presenting sponsors for IPL4 while the likes of Samsung Mobile, LG, Hyundai Motors, PepsiCo, Tata Photon, Havells, Cadbury and Godrej have paid roughly Rs 36 crore each to pick up sponsorships. INTERVIEW
Haroon Lorgat

'The World Cup is a multibillion dollar event' As far as Haroon Lorgat, Chief Executive, International Cricket Council, or ICC, is concerned, the Cricket World Cup is the biggest event in the sport. Lorgat spoke to Kushan Mitra from ICC's headquarters in Dubai. Edited excerpts: Do you feel global tournaments, such as the World Cup, face a challenge from the IPL? There is no doubt about the passion that audiences and cricketers feel for the Cricket World Cup. Some people think that the 50-over format faces challenges, particularly from T20? I think all three formats are viable - One-Day Internationals, Tests and T20. This is why we want to have world championships for all three formats. We are currently in the process of finalising a format for a Test championship in 2013. How much is the 2011 World Cup worth? We do not disclose how much we make from commercial deals with partners but, looking at the massive audience, I believe this is a multibillion dollar event. The One-Day International World Cup will have only 10 teams from 2015, down from the current 14. Doesn't that go against ICC's philosophy of expanding the reach of the sport? That is true, but we plan to use the T20 format to spread the reach of the sport. From the 2012 T20 World Cup onwards, we will have 16 teams taking part, and will keep increasing the number. There are 105 countries and territories where cricket is played in an organised manner today, double the number from a decade ago. So by that logic isn't it unfair that the Test playing nations see it as their right to qualify for the ICC tournaments? We are working on a new qualification system for our tournaments. Is pay TV the right way to popularise the sport? Many countries and sporting bodies are choosing pay TV as well. Cricket is the number two

global sport, and while we do not compete with FIFA, we believe we have considerable reach, and will expand the popularity of the game. What will the funds raised from the 2011 World Cup be used for? We will plough the funds back into cricket. World Cup prize money: Slow but steady
L.K. Gupta

"Over time, ODI viewership has been dropping. In 2003, games involving India got average television viewer ratings, or TVRs, of 13 to 14. In 2007, the same viewership came down to seven to eight TVRs," explains Gupta. "Currently, ODIs have ratings of four TVRs. Non-India matches fall to about 0.6 TVR," adds Gupta indicating that the days of one-dayers are numbered, at least in the current format. "The World Cup traditionally has been the biggest cricketing property. Till 2007, the ODI was the only format of cricket. It was only later that T20 happened.

The growth of World Cup prize money is synonymous with India's rising infl uence in the game. 1979 Pound 10,000 to winners, Pound 4,000 to the runners-up. Winning team in group matches took home just Pound 500 each
Kapil Dev

1983 Pound 20,000 to winners, Pound 42,000 overall 1987 Pound 30,000 to winners; winners of group matches got just Pound 1,500

So advertisers would wait for the World Cup," Imran Khan adds MSM's Gupta. Now, with the IPL 1992 scheduled to begin six days after the World A$250,000 was what the winners Cup ends, marketers may prefer to place their took home chips on the more popular 20-20 format. Even the ICC is taking a wait-and-watch stand on 1999 the future of the ODI format. "We will let For the fi rst time, the prize money on offer market forces determine the course of the crosses $1 million ODI format," an ICC official told BT.
Ricky Ponting

"The IPL is a more proven format and the 2003 advertisers are willing to bet huge monies on Total prize money pool crosses $5 it. There is better visibility for the brand as it million, the winner takes home $2 reaches more people and the reach is million consistent match after match," says Mahesh Ranka, General Manager, Relay Worldwide, 2007 which provides sponsorship consulting and is Prize money remains the same, but winners a part of Starcom MediaVest. Ranka points take $2.24 million 2011 Prize money pool doubles to $10 million; winners to take home $3 million

out that brands like Havells virtually built their visibility on the IPL. "IPL is a big platform, World Cup or no World Cup," says former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu. "It is a $4.1-billion brand; it is an industry here to stay," he adds. Ranka also believes that a tournament like the World Cup is too dependent on the Indian team's performance and that advertisers would prefer a safer bet such as the IPL, where interest is broad-based. ESPN, though, believes that the World Cup continues to be a good property for advertisers. "I think people make a mistake when they say that 'only' 10 countries follow cricket. People are interested in group matches because they want to see who wins what and the permutations and combinations of contests," says ESPN's Sawhney. Others such as Castrol believe that the international following of the World Cup makes it a better proposition than the IPL, which largely has an Indian following. "South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the UK are all key markets for Castrol worldwide. The fact that the World Cup is followed in these countries also makes it a good sporting event to be associated with," explains Castrol's Kirpalani. Either way, the debate about the future of the ODI format and the World Cup will be determined in fewer than three months. Another early ouster for the men in blue will mean curtains for this tournament, which derives 75-80 per cent of its revenues from the Indian subcontinent. However, if Dhoni's team makes it to the finals, Indian cricket's poster boys won't be the only ones smiling.