The 14th edition of ICC World Cup cricket tournament will be co-hosted by three South Asian test playing counties: Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. ICC World Cup 2011 kicks off with the opening ceremony scheduled to take place at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur in Bangladesh on 17 February 2011. The same venue will host the opening game of the tournament between Bangladesh and India on 19 February. Out of total 49 matches in the tournament, India will host highest 29 games including a quarter final and the tournament final. Sri Lanka will organize 12 matches including a quarter final as well as a semi final, while Bangladesh will stage 8 games including 2 quarter finals. Except the opening game, India will play all of their group stage matches at home; while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will play the group stage matches in front of their home crowd.
Tournament Venues
All of the 49 matches will be held in 13 different venues across the three countries. Except two new venues in Sri Lanka (Hambantota and Pallekele), the rest of them are test venues including India’s 8 well-known test grounds. Here, I am giving the names of the venues:
India
MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai,
Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad,
Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur,
Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi,
Eden Gardens, Kolkata,
M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore,
Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, Chandigarh,
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Bangladesh
Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Dhaka
Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chittagong
Sri Lanka
Hambantota,
Pallekele,
R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo
India will host its first match on 20 February when Kenya and New Zealand will face each other at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk in Chennai. The first game in Sri Lanka will be held on the same day at Hambantota where Sri Lankan team will take on Canada. Pakistan was one of the co-hosts of the tournament initially, but was stripped off the host status on security ground by ICC. Pakistan will play all of their matches in Sri Lanka unless they reach the semi final. If Pakistan can get into the last four of the tournament, they have to travel to India.