Icc Shortens 2011 World Cup
The 2011 Cricket World Cup will be shorter than the 2007 version, with the International Cricket Council revealing a new format for the flagship tournament.
The 2011 World Cup will see a reduction in the overall number of games from 51 to 49 with the aim being to shorten the tournament by at least a week.
The 2007 tournament held in the West Indies, which began with four groups of four and progressed to a Super Eight stage, lasted six weeks and was widely criticised for dragging on too long.
‘We’re already certain that it will be shorter. You can be sure that we at the ICC had learnt from past mistakes,’ said the ICC president David Morgan following a two-day board meeting in Johannesburg.
‘I mean there is no doubt that the ICC World Cup in the Caribbean was unsuccessful in some aspects.’
The new format will see the teams split into two groups of seven for the first round. England will face India and South Africa in their group, as well as West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland and Holland.
‘We wanted to get the balance correct,’ said ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat. ‘We had one proviso that we would not have wanted more than two of the subcontinent teams in any one group. The rest depends on where you stand in the rankings and you use the formula that allocates the teams, dependent on your positioning in the ranking tables.’
