MELBOURNE (Australia) Nov 28: Plans for a best-of-three final at the 2007 cricket World Cup have been rejected, but the tournament in the West Indies will be structured differently from its predecessor, the International Cricket Council said on Friday.

The ICC has decided upon four groups of four teams to contest an initial round-robin stage with each group confined to an island, chief executive Malcolm Speed said.

The top two from each group go to an eight-team round robin involving six matches each — teams which met in the previous stage not required to play each other again.

The top four then proceed to a standard knockout semifinal stage and then a final.

It is a marked change from the 2003 event in South Africa where two groups of seven contested qualification for a group of six, then semifinals and final.

Speed had lobbied for a best-of-three final, while there had also been discussion on a round-robin semifinal or best-of-three semifinals.

“There were some who supported (a best-of-three final), including me, but the sense in the end was that the cricket World Cup is about one match, sudden death, best team on the day wins the World Cup,” Speed said.

“It was a rare loss for me on that argument.”

The changes were designed to reduce constant traveling between the Caribbean nations and the logistical problems that would ensue.

“It gives us the best opportunity for the best four teams to come through to the semifinal stage, that’s a major feature of this format that didn’t exist in South Africa,” Speed said.

The various West Indian nations will bid to stage matches in a tender process that places importance upon infrastructure.

“There is no more difficult region to run a World Cup than this . . . we’ve taken on a big task,” Speed said.

All players and officials will travel on charter flights.

The West Indian nations may yet also face competition for hosting rights from the United States, with the ICC eager to establish a presence there.

“There will be at least one group from the United States that will bid to host matches, and it will be in a competitive bidding process with the West Indian islands,” Speed said, with the decision on venues to be made by July of next year.

“The United States, as a sporting nation, has a great deal of potential, it’s the closest country to the West Indies, so there would be good reasons it would of interest for us to have them there.”

There will be 51 matches at the 2007 event compared to 54 in South Africa, while the tournament will go for about 50 days once reserve days are included.—AP doping policy next year

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is aiming to have a worldwide doping policy in place before the Champions’ Trophy tournament in England next September, ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed said here on Friday.

He said the ICC would meet soon with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), whose president Dick Pound criticised Cricket Australia (CA) earlier this year over the Shane Warne doping controversy.

“We are looking at a generic doping program that will go across the top of cricket,” Speed said.

“We are about to have meetings with WADA to look at adopting the WADA program. There is some opposition within cricket to that.”

Speed said the major issue was a mandatory two-year sentence for a first offence.

Warne received a one-year ban in February when he tested positive for a banned diuretic.

Pound later criticised Cricket Australia for initially letting Warne train with the Victorian state and Australian teams during his suspension.

Bowing to pressure from the Australian Government, CA tighened the ban conditions in August, meaning Warne could train only in private during his suspension.

Speed hoped the WADA would give the ICC some discretion in sentencing.

“If there are cheats out there who are using banned substances, yes we want to punish them,” he said.

“But if there are issues that fall below that level, we want the discretion to deal with them on a more issue-sensitive basis.

Speed said cricket was serious about anti-doping, but admitted the sport had “a long way to go” to properly address the issue. —AFP