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The International Cricket Council (ICC) organizes World Cup Cricket every four years to select the world champions of the one-day cricket matches. The entire test playing nations and some qualifying nations play this tournament. At present 10 nations from different continents of the world has acquired the test status. West Indies has got the privilege of hosting the next world cup cricket tournament in the year 2007. 10 test playing nations and six other qualifiers will fight each other to grab the title of world champions.
The history of World Cup Cricket dates back to 1975. In this year England hosted the first ever world cup cricket tournament. At that time Australia, West Indies, India, Pakistan and New Zealand were other five test playing nations that participated in the tournament. Sri Lanka and East Africa were two non test-playing nations. West Indies won the championship by defeating England in the final by 17 runs. The next two World Cup Cricket tournaments were also held in England in the year 1979 and 1983 respectively. Till that time no body even thought of organizing the world cup cricket out side England. According to N.K.P. Salve, the then BCCI president, when India reached the finals in the 1983 world cup, his request for two additional tickets was rejected by MCC. This unkind refusal resulted in a heavy and successful campaign by Mr. Salve to receive the rights to host the next world cup jointly with Pakistan. Since then all major cricket-playing nations have jointly hosted this tournament. In the 1979 World Cup Cricket tournament, Canada played as a qualifying nation. This time West Indies again defeated England in the final by 92 runs to won the championship. Zimbabwe was the new entrant in the 1983 World Cup Cricket tournament. Unexpectedly, this time Indian team won the title. They defeated previous champions West Indies by 43 runs. 1987 World Cup Cricket Tournament was jointly hosted by India and Pakistan. In a thrilling Final at Eden Gardens, Calcutta, Australia defeated England by a narrow margin of only 7 runs. In the next world cup in 1992 South African team was allowed to play. Australia and New Zealand jointly organized this tournament. Pakistan won the title by defeating rival team by 22 runs. England again was the losing team. Next world cup was played in Indian sub continent in 1996. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka jointly hosted the tournament. Three new teams, Kenya, Netherlands and United Arab Emirates played in this tournament. This time Sri Lanka managed to scale the summits of cricket by defeating Australia in the final by 7 wickets. Bangladesh and Scotland were the new entrants in the 1999 world cup held in England. Namibia was the only new team in the 2003 world cup hosted jointly by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Australia managed to win both these world cup finals. Host nations of the next four world cup cricket tournaments will be as follows - 2007 - West Indies 2011 - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh 2015 - Australia And New Zealand 2015 - England. |
