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International cricket bosses have approved a shorter World Cup format pushed by Pakistan for the 2011 spectacle which they are to jointly host with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The PCB had proposed for a shorter 2011 World Cup, both in terms of its duration and the number of participating teams at a meeting of the ICC in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. A PCB official told ‘The News’ that the proposal received the thumbs up from the ICC.

“Today the ICC has approved the new format proposed by us,” said Shafqat Naghmi, PCB’s Chief Operating Officer. Pakistan had been rooting their support for a changed format for the next World Cup after the last year’s edition of the quadrennial event in the West Indies turned out to be quite a flop.

It was a long event and became dull for India and Pakistani fans — who form a sizeable part of the world cricket audience — after their teams were bundled out of the tournament in the opening round.

In the 2006 World Cup, the 16 competing teams were divided in four-team pools with the top two from each group advancing to the Super Eights. Pakistan failed to finish among the top-two from their pool after suffering from a shock defeat against minnows Ireland.

The PCB wanted this sort of format scrapped as it could end a major team’s campaign just on the basis of one bad outing. They instead wanted the ICC to opt for a format more similar to the 1992 World Cup in which the participating teams featured in a greater number of games before the start of the knock-out stages.

Source:Cricket News