ICC Cricket World Cup is an annual cricket tournament held across the globe. The International Cricket Council (the sport’s regulatory authority) has made ODI or One Day International quite famous. To give you a perspective – the Cricket World Cup is world’s third-largest athletic event, after the World Cup of soccer and the Summer Olympic Games. In 1975, England hosted the first Cricket World Cup tournament. Since 1973, a separate Women’s Cricket World Cup has been held once every four years.
All ten Test-playing countries compete in the Cricket World Cup finals. Other nations qualified in the Cup Qualifying competition will join them.
Development
On the 24th and 25th of September 1844, Canada and the United States played the first-ever international cricket match. However, Australia and England cricket teams played the first acknowledged Test match in 1877. The two sides fought in the Ashes in the later years. Later on, test status was granted to South Africa in 1889. The cricket teams were chosen to tour each other, culminating in bilateral play. At the 1900 Paris Olympics, cricket was included as an Olympic event. Cricket had its single appearance at the Summer Olympics.
The 1912 Triangular Tournament was the world’s first multi-team international competition. Australia cricket, South Africa and England competed in a test match in England. International Test cricket was organised as bilateral series in recent years. The quadrangular Asian Test Championship in 1999 was the first ever multi-team Test event.
English county cricket teams started playing a one-day version of the game in the early 1960s. One-day cricket rose in popularity in 1962 with the Midlands Knock-Out Cup, a four-team elimination competition.
Qualification
The Test-playing nations qualify for the World Cup main event immediately. In comparison, the rest of the teams must compete in a series of preliminary qualification tournaments. The One Day International playing nations go up against other nations who qualified through various competitions into the World Cup Qualifier – the final qualification tournament.
For the second World Cup, qualifying competitions were introduced, with the top two teams in the ICC Trophy receiving two of the eight spots in the finals. The team picked for the Cricket World Cup through the ICC Trophy has fluctuated over the years; to the current six teams.
Tournament
The Cricket World Cup has had many different formats over its history. Eight teams competed in the first four tournaments, divided into two groups of four. There were two phases to the competition: a group stage and a knockout stage. In the group stage, each of the four teams in each group played each other once. Each group’s top two teams advanced to the semi-finals. In the final, the semi-finalists faced off against each other. After South Africa’s return in 1992, following the end of the apartheid boycott, nine teams competed in the group stage, with the best four teams progressing to the semi-finals.
There are 14 teams in the current format. The 14 teams are broken into two seven-person groups. Every team in every group will play with each other once. It is this where they compete in the quarter-finals. The quarter-final winners will progress to the semi-finals. And the semi-final winners will advance to the final i74n the World T20 game.