Dubai: The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced a 20 per cent increase in prize money for next year’s World Cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand next year. The prize money is hence raised from 2011 World Cup’s prize money of $8.01 million to $10 million.
The two-day ICC board meeting, which concluded on Monday, also decided that the winners can pocket $3.975 million and even more. The ICC decided that the team which remain unbeaten in the World Cup can receive a total prize money of USD $4,020,000 but if the team loses one match on the way to winning the tournament, it will receive $ $3,975,000 only. Even the team which loses the final on March 29 at Melbourne can win $1.75 million while the two losing semi-finalists will each get $600,000 each. The four losing quarterfinalists will receive $300,000 each while the winners of each group matches will get $45,000 per match. Even the six teams eliminated from the first stage will get $35,000 each.
The ICC also announced that the Decision Review System (DRS) will be used in all 49 matches, there would only be reserve days in the knockout phase and no super over in tied matches in the knockout phase.
The ICC also announced that top eight sides on the ICC one-day rankings as on 30 September 2015 will qualify for the 2017 Champions Trophy in England. The top-eight ranked sides on that date will automatically qualify for the 2019 World Cup, while the ninth and 10th ranked teams will play in the World Cup qualifying competition in Bangladesh in 2018.
The new anti corruption code was approved with a provision for a banned player to gain an early return to domestic cricket in certain circumstances. “When exercising discretionary powers in this regard, the Chairman of the ACSU will consider a number of factors, including the level of remorse shown by the player, his/her cooperation with the ACSU’s education programme and/or if the player has helped the ACSU by disclosing all information that, in turn, has helped it to enforce the Anti-Corruption Code in respect of others engaged in corruption conduct,” remarked ICC Chairman N. Srinivasan.
The ICC Board accepted the Pakistan Cricket Board’s nomination of Najam Sethi, former Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, for the ICC Presidency. Sethi’s nomination will now be ratified by the General Council at the 2015 Annual Conference, following which he will take over from Mustafa Kamal as the ICC President for a period of 12 months.
