22 Interesting Facts About Cricket World Cups

The 11^th edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup will be played in Australia and New Zealand in 2015. The world cup of cricket has always been the priority for all of the cricket-playing nations and nowadays they prepare for the world cup well in advance. The world cups have their own stories and facts so let us have a look at them

Interesting Facts about Cricket World Cups

1. England is the only nation which has hosted the most number of World Cups (4) the next is India and Pakistan (2-both jointly)
2. The 1987 World Cup was the first-ever world cup which was held outside England.
3. The 1992 World Cup was the first-ever world cup which was hosted by the Southern Hemisphere countries.
4. The 1992 World Cup was the first-ever world cup, where white balls were used and Day and Night games were played with color clothing.
5. Because of the racial policy in South Africa, they could participate in the World Cup only in its 5^th edition in 1992.
6. Sri Lanka became the host for the first time in 1996 when they co-hosted the world cup in 1996.
7. Chetan Sharma of India is the first bowler to claim a hat trick in a world cup (1987).
8. Australia is the only team that has won 4 world cups in which three world cup wins came in a row (1997, 2003 & 2007).
9. After losing a round-robin game against Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup, Australia lost a game in a World Cup against the same team in the 2011 World Cup only.
10. Clive Lloyd and Ricky Ponting are the only captains who have won the world cup twice. Lloyd in 1975 and 1979 and Ponting in 2003 and 2007.
11. Sachin Tendulkar of India is the highest run-getter in the World Cup history; he has scored 2, 278 runs in 6 world cups.
12. Glenn McGrath of Australia has claimed the highest number of wickets in the history of world cups which is standing at 72.
13. Shahid Afridi of Pakistan has a unique record of taking four wickets or more wickets in a match in four world cups.
14. The venues for the World Cup finals are Lord’s (1975, 1979, 1983, 1999), Eden Gardens (1987), Melbourne Cricket Stadium (1992), Gaddafi Stadium (1996), The Wanderers (2003), Kensington Oval (2007) and Wankhede Stadium (2011).
15. Back in 2015, it was after 23 years that New Zealand and Australia jointly hosted the cricket world cup. Earlier, it was in 1992 when both the countries hosted this world cup.
16. As in 2015, these matches were played in Australia, there was a huge time gap between each of the matches. There were times when this gap would extend up to 6 hours.
17. It was in the year 2015 when Amitabh Bachchan created history during the India and Pakistan match. He was on the commentator’s seat with the cricket legends Kapil Dev and Rahul Dravid. This was Bachchan’s debut as a commentator in the cricket world and also the world cup.
18. In the 2015 world cup, Afghanistan’s cricket team made their much-awaited debut and were included in the Pool A with teams like Bangladesh, England, etc.
19. The 2019 cricket world cup witnessed the round-robin format. Here, every team got the opportunity to play with the other teams. This format was again adopted after the 1992 world cup.
20. It would be quite surprising for you to know that 2019 was the only year when Zimbabwe was not part of the world cup in all these glorious years of ICC world cup.
21. There were only 10 participating teams in the 2019 world cup. This was the first when only these many teams participated 
22.  In the year 2019, England made the record of hosting the world cup for the most number of times, i.e; five times.