KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP):
THE 2011 World Cup is set to be trimmed by two teams and nine days after criticism that last year's tournament in the Caribbean was too long.
The next World Cup is to be co-hosted by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and the International Cricket Council (ICC) is likely to cut it from 47 to 38 days by scrapping the second-round Super Eights stage.
The ICC's chief executive committee suggested yesterday at the end of a two-day meeting that the field be trimmed from 16 to 14 teams, which would be split into two groups of seven.
The top four in each group would advance to a knockout round rather than the Super Eights, which had a round-robin format and lasted 25 days. The ICC will make a formal decision at its next meeting in March.