India to host Pakistan’s eight World Cup matches

Mumbai, July 14 (IANS) The Central Organising Committee (COC) of the 2011 World Cup Tuesday recommended that India should host eight of the 14 cricket matches that were scheduled to take place in Pakistan.

The COC met here to provide the ICC Board with a recommendation as to where, within Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, the 14 matches originally allocated to Pakistan should be staged.

Pakistan, which was removed as one of the host countries by the International Cricket Council (ICC) due to security situations, skipped the COC meeting here.

The COC said that Sri Lanka will host the remaining four and Bangladesh two. India will now hosts 29 matches, Sri Lanka 12 and Bangladesh eight.

The COC recommendations will now be forwarded to the ICC Board for final approval. It was also decided that Mumbai will be the secretariat of the tournament. Ratnakar Shetty, Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) chief administrative officer, was appointed the tournament director.

“We had a good, productive meeting. There is much hard work to be done but we are confident we are now well on the way, with operational plans in place to become effective from the start of August. Moving forward, the COC will meet on a regular basis with everyone committed to a successful event, something we are confident we can achieve,” Shetty said in a statement.

A total of 13 venues will be used for the tournament with eight of those in India, three in Sri Lanka and two in Bangladesh. All venues for matches will be announced in due course.

Bangladesh will now stage two of the four quarter-finals, and India and Sri Lanka one each. The two semi-finals will be staged in India and Sri Lanka, and the final in India.

The COC also recommended that a security directorate be formed under the chairmanship of BCCI president Shashank Manohar. It also said that a committee under the chairmanship of N.Srinivasan, the BCCI secretary, will take charge of the issues of inspecting venues and pitches. Preliminary inspections are likely to take place in October. (IANS)

Melbourne, Mar 7 (ANI): Australia has ruled out hosting the 2011 world cup, which is due to be held in the sub continent, except in dire circumstances.

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland believes that the subcontinent will still hold the 2011 world cup despite this weeks terrorist attack on Sri Lankan team in Lahore.

Joint 2015 hosts Australia and New Zealand are reserve nations for 2011, but Sutherland said Australia did not want the event and had not been approached to hold it.

While we have obligations as a reserve nation, we are very, very reluctant to host in 2011 given there is such a short lead-time to the event, The Australian quoted him, as saying.

Were planning for 2015, which is six years away. With major events, you need that sort of time frame.

There are increasing concerns about security throughout the subcontinent following attack on the convoy containing the Sri Lankan team bus and a van with match officials.

Speculation had been mounting that the International Cricket Council would consider moving the next world cup, but that appears most unlikely.

The designated hosts are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, but Pakistan will be ruled out as a destination.

Even Bangladesh has cancelled a tour to Pakistan following the terrorist attack. (ANI)

Melbourne, Mar. 4 (ANI): Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has said Australia is ready to host the 2011 World Cup. Officially, we are the standby hosts for the 2011 World Cup — our strong preference is for the event to go ahead in Asia, hosted by the countries that the ICC sees fit, Sutherland said. The International Cricket Council (ICC) was doubtful over holding World Cup 2011 in Pakistan, saying that the Lahore attacks had changed the global scenario of the game. However, he said, he would prefer the tournament to go ahead as scheduled in Pakistan, along with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. We”re the hosts for 2015 and we”re confident we can put on a fantastic event… but we want the appropriate lead time into that event because of all the planning considerations necessary for it, Sutherland said. New Zealand are also standby hosts for the 2011 World Cup. The ICC board will discuss the fallout from the Lahore ambush and its consequences for the World Cup in Dubai next month. (ANI)