About the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011

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 most viewed sporting event.According to the ICC, it is the most important tournament and the pinnacle of achievement in the sport. The first Cricket World Cup contest was organised in England in 1975. Australia has been the most successful of the five teams to have won the tournament, taking four titles. The West Indies have won twice, while Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka have each won once.

The 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup will be the tenth Cricket World Cup and will be hosted by three South Asian Test cricket playing countries: India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It will be Bangladesh’s first time co-hosting a Cricket World Cup. The World Cup will use cricket’s One Day International format, with fourteen national cricket teams scheduled to compete. The World Cup will take place between February and early April 2011, with the first match to be played on 19 February 2011 with co-hosts India and Bangladesh facing off at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka. The opening ceremony will be held on 17 February 2011, two days before the start of the tournament, with the final on 2 April 2011 at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

The first round of the tournament will be a round-robin in which the 14 teams are divided into 2 groups of 7 teams each. The 7 teams play each other once with the top 4 from each group qualifying for the quarter-finals. The format ensures that each team gets to play a minimum of 6 matches even if they are ruled out of the tournament due to early defeats.Play in Group of the 2011 Cricket World Cup will take place from 20 February to 20 March 2011. The Group A consists of hosts Sri Lanka and along with them, Pakistan, Canada, Kenya, New Zealand, Australia and Zimbabwe while the Group B consists of hosts India and Bangladesh, along with England, Ireland, Netherlands, West Indies and South Africa.The top four teams with two teams from each groups will advance to the Quarter Finals.

The ICC Cricket World Cup Trophy is a running trophy, presented to the winning team since 1999. It was designed by Garrard & Co within 2 months. The original trophy is kept with the ICC at headquarters in Dubai. The winning team is given a replica. The only difference between the two is that the original has the names of all the previous winners inscribed on it.

The 2011 Cricket World Cup winning team would be taking home a prize money of US$ 3 million and US$ 1.5 million for runner-up, with the International Cricket Council deciding to double the total allocation for the coveted tournament to US$ 10 million. The decision was taken at the ICC Board meeting which was held in Dubai on April 20, 2010.

The Umpire selection panel selected 18 umpires excluding a reserve umpire, Enamul Haque to officiate at the World Cup: 5 from Australia, 6 from Asia, 3 from England, 2 from New Zealand and 1 each from South Africa and West Indies.

Stumpy is the official mascot for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. He was unveiled at a function in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Friday, 2 April 2010. He is a ten year old elephant who is very young, enthusiastic and is determined. Cricket-followers based all over the world were able to participate in a contest to name the mascot. The official name of the mascot was released on Monday, 2 August 2010 after an online competition conducted by the International Cricket Council in the last week of July, 2010. It was unveiled by players like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Kumar Sangakara with 200 days to go for the world cup and the official song of the World Cup “De Ghuma Ke” is composed by the trio of Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, and is sung in Hindi, Bangla and Sinhala.

The official event ambassador for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 is Sachin Tendulkar.

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 most viewed sporting event