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Sri Lanka to join Asian neighbours in World Cup bid
By S.R. Pathiravithana
Asian neighbours, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh met on Friday and agreed to post a bid for the 2011 World Cup. Sri Lanka was represented at this meeting, which was held in New Delhi, by SLCs Chief Executive Officer Duleep Mendis.

Thus they met and agreed on Friday to beat a February 28 ICC deadline. However the four boards were not in a position to draw up a detailed proposal, but are hopeful that the ICC will agree to wait. In 1996 Sri Lanka joined India and Pakistan in a joint bid and brought home the World Cup under Arjuna Ranatunge. At that time Bangladesh was not a full member of the ICC.

The ICC proposes to give each host country a sum of $ 10 million (Appx. Rs. One Thousand Million). Speaking on the proposal SLC’s secretary Adel Hashim said: “This sum is much bigger than the purse that was given to host the 1996 World Cup. At the same time, unlike at the previous World Cup, we are also looking out for a bigger piece of the cake. However, the final modalities will have to be worked out.

“Earlier Sri Lanka was even looking at other options of bidding, and was planning to team up with Dubai, but now we have come up with this option.
“Another aspect that came in our favour was the manner in which we conducted the Under 19 World Cup. The hierarchy of the ICC was more than impressed the way we conducted the tournament even though Sri Lanka did not gain monetary-wise.

This is going to be a very big plus factor for us”. Australia and New Zealand are also expected to bid for the 2011 tournament and it is their turn under the normal rotation system. However the four Asian bidders will meet again on March 12 to workout the full details of the bid, including the proposed match venues.

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