No clear favourites in World Cup Cricket 2015
The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup will be the 11th ICC Cricket World Cup scheduled to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand from 14 February to 29 March 2015. 49 matches will be played in 14 venues with Australia staging 26 games at grounds in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney while New Zealand hosts 23 games in seven cities, including Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Nelson and Wellington. The final match of the tournament will take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It will be one of the world’s largest international sports tournaments, with 14 competing teams and more than 400 accredited players and officials taking part in it.
Fourteen nations have been divided into two groups of seven. Pole A: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Scotland of the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka. Pole B: India, Ireland, Pakistan, South Africa, UAE, West Indies and Zimbabwe.
On the opening day on February 14, hosts New Zealand will take on Sri Lanka and co-hosts Australia face England.
Four teams from each group will sail into the quarterfinals, champions of group A facing B4, champions of Group B facing A4, A2 will meet B3 and B2 will clash with A3. The two semifinals and final matches will be held on March 24, 26 and 29 respectively.
The eventual champions will get $ 39,75,000, runners-up team to get $ 17,50,000 and two losing semifinalists to get $ 12,00,000 each as prize money.
Australia and New Zealand which belong to the same continent are unwisely placed in the same group.
We wish the Team Bangladesh to shine and happy end of the competition.
Abdullah Akber
Dhaka
