Cricket World Cup

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

ICC Cricket World Cup
The current ICC 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)
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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][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 Cup has 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 started on 19 February 2011 and commenced on 2 April 2011. The tournament was co-hosted by Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka with the participation of 14 countries. India won the cup by defeating Sri Lanka by 6 wickets in the final, thus becoming the first team to win a world cup final on home soil.^[5]
From 1992 to 2011, at least one team from the Indian subcontinent has reached the World Cup final, Pakistan (winner) in 1992, Sri Lanka (winner) in 1996, Pakistan (runner up) in 1999, India (runner up) in 2003, Sri Lanka (runner up) in 2007, India (winner) and Sri Lanka (runner up) in 2011.

Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Before the first Cricket World Cup 1.2 Prudential World Cups 1.3 1987–1996 1.4 Australian treble 2 Format 2.1 Qualification 2.2 Tournament 3 Trophy 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 Awards 8.1 Man of the Tournament 8.2 Man of the Match in the World Cup Final 9 Tournament Records 9.1 Main individual and team records 10 See also 11 References 12 Notes 13 External links

History

Main article: History of the Cricket World Cup

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 and England, 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]
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]

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 June 7.^[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 66-1 to win by bookmakers before the competition began, were crowned champions after upsetting the West Indies by 43 runs in the final.[