Cricket World Cup Trivia
Here is some trivia about the cricket world cup. See more information about each host and country.
- At the first four World Cups, all players wore the traditional cricket white uniform and red balls were used.
- The first three world cups were held in England.
- In 1999, the trophy won by the Indian cricket team at the 1983 World Cup was damaged during a violent rampage on the Indian cricket board's headquarters by the Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena.
- At the World Cup in 1996, Australia and West Indies refused to play their matches against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka due to security concerns, causing both matches to be awarded to Sri Lanka by default. Also, Sri Lanka were awarded a victory for their semi-final by default against India because of crowd riots. This aided their campaign which eventually led to them winning the final.
- The only man reportedly to have played both World Cup Football and World Cup Cricket is Viv Richards — Antigua and Barbuda at football (in the qualifiers only) and West Indies at cricket. Well actually he played for Antigua and Barbuda in a qualifying round of the CONCACAF championship, which is in turn the qualifier to get into the World Cup of 1974. Someone who did actually achieve this unique double is Australian woman Ellyse Perry, who appeared in the final rounds of both cricket (2009) and football World Cups (2011).
- Namibian Rudie van Vuuren appeared in both the cricket and rugby union World Cups in 2003.
- Anderson Cummins is only the second player to represent two different teams in the World Cup (West Indies 1991-92 and Canada 2007). The other is Kepler Wessels who played for Australia in 1983 and for South Africa in 1991-92. A close call was Graeme Hick, who played for England in 1991-92, 1995-96 and 1999, and was in the Zimbabwe squad for the 1983 World Cup but did not get a game.
- Sri Lanka, who co-hosted the 1996 Cricket World Cup, was the first host nation to win the tournament (although the final was played in Pakistan). In 2011, India, who were also co-hosts for that year, won the tournament.
- On 18 Mar 2011 Australia ended a 34-match World Cup streak without a loss. During this period, which started on May 27, 1999, they won 32 matches, while one was tied and one was a no-result.
- The 2019 World Cup was the first to be contested without all of the Test playing nations being present (in 2018 Ireland and Afghanistan were added to the list of Test playing nations, making to a total of 12, however the tournament was reduced to only 10 teams).
- Six nations have appeared at all World Cup Tournaments (Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). The West Indies appeared in the first 12 tournaments, but failed to qualify for the 2023 World Cup.
- At the 2023 World Cup Australian Glenn Maxwell scored the fastest 100 in ODI World Cup history, in only 40 balls. In a later match in the tournament, he scored a double century in what has been described as the greatest ODi innings in history.
- Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Matthews was timed out in a match against Bangladesh at the 2023 World Cup, the first player in any form of international cricket to be dismissed in that manner.
Related Pages
- More World Cup trivia with world cup FIRSTS
- More country specific trivia on the pages about each country that has played at the WC .
- Women's World Cup trivia
- T20 World Cup Trivia
- World Cup History
- More Sports Trivia
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