India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to host cricket World Cup

By: Subhadeep Bhattacherjee

The International Cricket Council has finally given a go ahead to India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to jointly host the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011. ICC's Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat announced in Mumbai that India will now host 29 matches, Sri Lanka will get 12 matches while Bangladesh will get 8 matches. The matches in India will be played across 13 venues with Mumbai getting the honour of hosting the final.

Pakistan was dropped as a venue over growing security concerns in the war torn nation. Most of the teams are against the idea of playing cricket in Pakistan especially after the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in February. The ICC also decided to shift the Cricket World Cup Secretariat from Lahore to Mumbai. BCCI chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty was appointed the Managing Director of the 2011 World Cup.

Pakistan on its part had requested the ICC to allow its share of matches to be hosted in Abu Dhabi. The International Cricket Council will pay a princely sum of $750,000 per match to the host nation. Pakistan was supposed to host 14 matches and could have made a whopping $1050000. The PCB which is starving for funds with the regular tour cancellation by international teams did not want its share of mullah to be grabbed by the Cricket Boards in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Pakistan's Dubai proposal was backed by Abdul Rehman Bukhatir who was the man behind turning Shahrjah as a lucrative cricketing venue. Bukhatir is one of the major share holders in the Dubai Sports Club and wants Dubai to be the next Shahrjah. The Board of Control for Cricket in India which along with the ICC had forced Bukhatir out of the cricketing business stood strictly against this idea as Dubai could become the next hub of match-fixing in world cricket.

The ICC's green signal now means that all the three nations from the subcontinent will have to work on a war footing as the preparations in all the three nations is running behind schedule. As for Pakistan it will have to try hard to keep up the spirit of the game alive in this hour of crisis which is taking a huge toll on the game and the nation as a whole.