World Cup 2011
The much-awaited news of shifting the 50 overs cricket World Cup final match venue finally appeared in cricifo on the 28th of April. The 2011 World Cup is shifting base from Lahore to Mumbai which did not surprise us as India expects to get a "big share" of the 14 matches that were initially allotted to Pakistan.
Twelve and eight matches are scheduled to be held in Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh respectively. However, I have my doubts whether these two countries will be finally getting the nods from ICC to hold matches as I fear Sri-Lanka will be aborted on the basis of their on going war on terror against the Tamil separatists as majority of the teams like Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies will certainly refuse to play there. And with the Bangladesh government's self declared and advertised terrorist stories on its soil, ICC certainly will look into it.
The Indian Board has already started hosting meetings in Mumbai where the tournament's organizing committee will be reconstituted without representatives from Pakistan, which was stripped of its co-host status this month due to the prevailing political situation in the country. The Indian Board is expected to take a decision to move the tournament's central organizing secretariat, its operational nerve centre, from Lahore to Mumbai. Apparently, re-allotment of Pakistan's 14 matches will also be discussed at the meeting. "Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are the co-hosts and out of these two, Bangladesh has only one venue to host all the matches, So obviously, India will expect to get a big share of those matches. The potential threat India will face in organizing the tournament is from the Pakistan Board which may not want to play in India, but the Indians will probably try to reschedule the Pakistan matches to Sri-Lanka, so that Pakistan has no logical point to cancel the tournament.
As we already know, the ICC executive board on April 17 resolved not to hold any 2011 World Cup matches in Pakistan because of the "uncertain political situation and threat of terror attacks " in the country.
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