Australasia Confirm Bid for 2011

Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket formally announced on Tuesday that they have submitted a joint bid to host the 2011 Cricket World Cup.

Together they completed their proposal last week and on Monday the bid document was delivered to the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Dubai.

There is one opposition bid that the Australasian team has to compete with, a united South Asian bid from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

It is understood that the main reason Australia did not go for a solo bid is because they believe that they would not stand a chance on their own considering the ICC seem more inclined to award the tournament to a multi country bid.

Australia and New Zealand co-hosted the World Cup back in 1992 and were next in line to host the event again in 2011 after Asia (1996) England (1999) Africa (2003) and the West Indies (2007) all took their turn hosting the tournament.

However, after Asia demanded that they should host every third World Cup due to the revenue they can make for the game, the rotational policy used by the ICC was scrapped and an event-by-event bidding process was put in its place.

Both bids will be presented to the ICC in Dubai this week with the winner expected to be announced in July.