Sri Lanka has been awarded to host the 12th World Cup, an indoor cricket tournament, by the World Indoor Cricket Federation (WICF) to be held from September 27 to October 5 that will see nearly 1000 players, officials and supports expected to turn up.
This was possible due to the successful conduct of a World Masters’ Series held in Sri Lanka only five months ago. The venue will be the Austasia Sports Complex and the newly built U Pro Arena in Thalawathugoda.
Ceylon Indoor Cricket Association (CICA) will conduct this tournament in four categories: the Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Under-22 for boys and girls.
Teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, England, UAE, Singapore, USA and hosts Sri Lanka will be seen in action.
Apart from being a major sporting event, it will also serve as a popular sports tourism opportunity for the host country at a time the tourism sector in the island nation is witnessing an upward trend in arrivals.
Over the last year there has been much activity relating to International Indoor Cricket in Sri Lanka. The England Asia Cup was followed by the Masters World Series, with the upgraded U Pro, Colombo and Austasia, Thalawathugoda facility producing exciting action on a daily basis.
The inaugural edition of the World Cup was held in 1995, in Birmingham, England with Bristol also hosting one in that country. Dubai was also a venue once. Colombo is the host city for the second occasion after a lapse of 21 years, bringing Sri Lanka into the limelight of Indoor Cricket World Cup action, this year.
Australia has won all world titles in both divisions up to now. In the Men’s category, New Zealand have been runners-up on eight instances, South Africa twice and Sri Lanka once. In the Women’s category, South Africa have been runners-up seven times while New Zealand have done so three times.
It will be interesting to witness this format of the game played within a limited space. All runs scored will not be added at will as there will be deductions when a wicket falls. When a six is scored with a big hit, five runs will be deducted when that batsman is dismissed. Interestingly, only half the batting pitch is taken into account when taking runs.
Only eight members form a team with four players will be fielding in front of the batsman and four behind. Each bowler is allowed to bowl only two overs.
These details were revealed at a media briefing held at the Cinnamon Grand Lakeside on March 26.
