The first attempt at any kind of world championship was in 1912, when a three-way series was arranged between the then current Test playing nations, Australia, England and South Africa.
Dogged by poor weather, the experiment was dropped and not repeated until 1975, when, following the success of domestic one-day competitions, the six Test-playing nations (England, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, India and Pakistan) were joined by Sri Lanka and East Africa in the first World Cup in England. A resounding success, the tournament was repeated in 1979 and 1983 in England, before moving abroad, maintaining a four-year cycle. The next tournament takes place in the Caribbean in 2007. A brief history of previous tournaments follows.

1975 World Cup in England
1979 World Cup in England
1983 World Cup in England
1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan
1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand
1996 World Cup in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
1999 World Cup in England
2003 World Cup in South Africa
2007 World Cup in West Indies


Cricket is a bat and ball sport played between two teams, usually of eleven players each.
A cricket match is played on a grass field (which is usually roughly oval), in the centre of
which is a flat strip of ground 22 yards (20.12 m) long, called a pitch. At each end of the pitch
is a set of three parallel wooden stakes (known as stumps) driven into the ground, with two small crosspieces (known as bails) laid on top of them. This wooden structure is called a wicket.
A player from the fielding team (the bowler) bowls a hard, fist-sized cork-centred leather ball from one wicket towards the other. The ball usually bounces once before reaching a player from the opposing team (the batsman), who defends the wicket from the ball with a wooden cricket bat.
The batsman, if he or she does not get out, may then run between the wickets, exchanging ends with the other batsman (the "non-striker"), who has been standing in an inactive role near the bowler's wicket, to score runs. The other members of the bowler's team stand in various positions around the field as fielders. The match is won by the team that scores more runs.

Cricket has been an established team sport for hundreds of years. It originated in its modern form in England and is popular mainly in the present and former members of the Commonwealth. In the countries of South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, cricket is the most popular sport. It is also a major sport in places such as England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Bermuda, and the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean, which are collectively known in cricketing parlance as the West Indies.

There are also well established amateur club competitions in countries as diverse as the
Netherlands, Kenya, Nepal and Argentina, among others; there are over one hundred cricket-playing nations recognised by the International Cricket Council.

The sport is followed with passion in many different parts of the world. It has even
occasionally given rise to diplomatic outrage, the most notorious being the Basil D'Oliveira affair which led to the banning of South Africa from sporting events. Other examples include the Bodyline series, played between England and Australia in the early 1930s, and the 1981 underarm bowling incident involving Australia and New Zealand.