FORMAT OF 2011 WORLD CUP MIGHT BE CHANGED
Bangalore, Dec 6: The format of the 2011 cricket World Cup, to be held in Asia, might undergo some changes and highest number of matches may be played than the 2007 tournament held in the West Indies.
Niranjan Shah, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said here a number of formats would be discussed at a meeting of the four joint hosts - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - in Delhi this weekend.
'We will be discussing a few formats at the meeting. One of them would be reverting to including quarter final stage instead of the Super Eights,' Shah told.
'According to the proposal, if we play quarter-finals there will be 59 matches in the tournament,' he said.
A total of 51 matches were played in 49 days in the 2007 tournament in March-April while 54 matches were played in South Africa in 2003.
The International Cricket Council wants to restrict the number of days of the World Cup. Therefore, it might not approve a World Cup with a quarter final round that will make the tournament longer.
Shah said there was no deadline for submitting the format, to be decided by the joint hosts, to the ICC.