December 08, 2007	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 27, 1428

BANGALORE, Dec 7: The 2011 World Cup cricket tournament could have a major overhaul following the long Caribbean contest, which was further exposed by the two-week Twenty20 World Championship hit in September.

The ICC officials are meeting in Bangladesh this week to discuss the 2011 edition, with seven different formats on the table including a single league.

Cricket Australia (CA) have already said they would welcome a shorter form, after this year’s inflated 47-day world event which turned many off, and they’re not the only board thinking that way.

A CA spokesman, Peter Young, told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on Thursday: “We support a shorter tournament. Most nations do now.”

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would prefer to revert to the format of the 2003 World Cup which consisted of 14 teams in two groups of seven, rather than 16 teams with four groups of four as happened in the Caribbean in 2007.

The PCB’s Chief Operating Officer Shafqat Naghmi said: “We don’t support the format used in the West Indies where if a good team have one bad day, they go out of the tournament. We will not support this format at all.” —Agencies