The 2015 Cricket World Cup (officially known as ICC Cricket World Cup 2015) was the 11th Cricket World Cup, jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand from 14 February to 29 March 2015. Australia defeated New Zealand by 7 wickets to win their fifth ICC Cricket World Cup. Fourteen teams played 49 matches in 14 venues, with Australia staging 26 games at grounds in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney while New Zealand hosted 23 games in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Nelson and Wellington.


The hosting rights were awarded at the same time as those of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, which Australia and New Zealand had originally bid to host, and the 2019 Cricket World Cup, which was awarded to England. The 2011 tournament was awarded to the four Asian Test cricket playing countries: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (Pakistan later lost the co-hosting rights due to a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team). The International Cricket Council were sufficiently impressed with the trans-Tasman bid that it was decided to award the next World Cup to Australia and New Zealand.This was the second time the tournament was held in Australia and New Zealand, with the first being the 1992 Cricket World Cup.

India were the defending champions, having won the tournament in 2011. Tickets for the Pool B match between India and Pakistan, played on 15 February 2015, reportedly sold out within 12 minutes of going on sale.

The final match of the tournament took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between co-hosts New Zealand and Australia in front of a record crowd of 93,013 while the average attendance throughout the tournament was 21,175 resulting from the cumulative tournament attendance of 1,016,420 and a washed out game between Australia and Bangladesh in Brisbane for which no attendance-figures were available.

The 2015 Cricket World Cup is estimated to have been watched by over 1.5 billion people. The most widely watched match during the tournament was India vs. Pakistan, which is estimated to have drawn over 1 billion viewers.

The ICC announced the hosts for the previous World Cup, the 2011 competition, on 30 April 2006. Australia and New Zealand had also bid for the tournament and a successful Australasian bid for the 2011 World Cup would have seen a 50–50 split in games, with the final still up for negotiation. The Trans-Tasman bid, Beyond Boundaries, was the only bid for 2011 delivered to the ICC headquarters at Dubai before the 1 March deadline. Considerable merits of the bid included the superior venues and infrastructure, and the total support of the Australian and New Zealand governments on tax and custom issues during the tournament, according to Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland. The New Zealand government had also assured that the Zimbabwean team would be allowed to take part in the tournament after political discussions about whether their team would be allowed to tour Zimbabwe in 2005.

ICC President Ehsan Mani said that the extra time required by the Asian bloc to hand over its bid had harmed the four-nation bid. However, when it came to the voting, the Asians won by seven votes to four; according to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), it was the vote of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) that turned the matter. It was reported in Pakistani newspaper Dawn that the Asian countries promised to hold fundraising events for West Indian cricket during the 2007 Cricket World Cup, which may have influenced the vote. However, I.S. Bindra, chairman of the monitoring committee of the Asian bid, denied that, saying that it was their promise of extra profits of US$400 million that swung the vote their way.

The ICC was so impressed by the efficiency of the Trans-Tasman bid that they decided to award the next World Cup, to be held in 2015, to them.

Australia and New Zealand last jointly hosted the Cricket World Cup in 1992.

Format

The tournament featured 14 teams, the same number as the 2011 World Cup, giving associate and affiliate member nations a chance to participate.

The format was the same as the 2011 edition: 14 teams take part in the initial stages, divided into two groups of seven; the seven teams play each other once before the top four teams from each group qualify for the quarter-finals.

On 29 January 2015, ICC reinstated the use of the Super Over for Cricket World Cup Final match if the match finished as a tie.

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