An Introduction to the ICC World Cup for Cricket Bettors
The ICC Cricket World Cup is the international championship tournament for One Day International, or 50 overs cricket. The event is organised by the sport’s governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a Finals tournament that is held every four years. The ICC Cricket World Cup is one of the world’s most viewed sporting events and is considered the flagship event of the international cricket calendar by the ICC and cricket fans alike.
In the aftermath of the 2015 edition of the tournament, ICC Chief Executive David Richardson has ascertained what all the fans around the world know, and that is that the most recent ICC Cricket World Cup had been the most followed and best attended cricket event in history.
The World Cup in Numbers
The ICC World Cup was broadcast by 44 licensees, in seven languages across 220 territories, the India versus Pakistan group match drew an approximate television audience of more than 288 million in India alone, while the Australia versus England match was watched by 2.1 million people in Australia and many of them placing online cricket bets on the World Cup.
There are 10 radio licensees broadcasting the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 matches live into 80 territories and for those following the tournament on new media, the website has attracted 26.25 million unique visitors accumulating an incredible 227 million page views, which is a significant increase on any previous ICC event. And the tournament app was downloaded 3.6 million times and was the number-one sports app in no fewer than 48 countries.
Delight for All Involved
With each tournament, the ICC Cricket World Cup has grown remarkably, and the recent event has been a record-breaking tournament and has cemented the event’s position as one of the most popular sporting spectacles in the world, according to all the media and online statistics.
On the field, players and team officials have reported being delighted with the quality of pitches, outfields and training facilities. Spectator attendance has been remarkable too, and the largest crowd was drawn during the India versus South Africa game on 22 February at the Melbourne Cricket Ground at which there were more than 86,000 people cheering on their respective teams, an amazing thing, given that neither of the host teams were involved.
The Road to the Finals
The finals of the ICC World Cup are contested by the ten full members of the ICC; the Test-playing nations and a number of teams made up from associate and affiliate members of the ICC. The non-full members are selected via the World Cricket League and a later qualifying tournament. This methodology has seen a total of twenty teams in total competing in the eleven editions of the tournament, with fourteen competing in the 2015 tournament.
The top winners of the tournament are Australia, who have won the tournament five times. The West Indies and India have won the ICC World Cup twice each, and both Pakistan and Sri Lanka have won it once. The best performance by a non-full-member team came when Kenya made the semi-finals of the 2003 tournament. New Zealand bettors can also place bets on cricket at many international sportsbooks. Go to this site for more details on how you can wager.
