Domestic Cricket: I will use the example of domestic cricket in England. Here we have the LV= County Championship league consisting of 18 sides that play home and away in 4 day matches. The most successful team is Yorkshire. Domestic cricket is also played in much shorter periods here in the Friends Life t20 tournament (this replaced the Twenty20 Cup) and this has 18 competing teams. The most successful team is Leicestershire Foxes covering both Friends Life t20 and the previous Twenty20 Cup. “Twenty20″ is a modern limited overs concept in cricket that has a very fast pace, whereby the match is aimed to be completed in just three hours.

International Cricket: We will begin with “Test Cricket” that runs long 5 day matches. Test Cricket involves teams that have achieved “Test Status” from the International Cricket Council (ICC) who are the international governing body of cricket. There is much international focus on shorter periods. One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket played out between teams with “Test Status” and 6 other teams (the top associate and affiliate members). The “One Day International” format is also used for the Cricket World Cup. The modern Twenty20 concept has also arrived on the international scene.

The Cricket World Cup is of course a major interest for all cricket fans stretching across the globe. The first Cricket World Cup was hosted in England back in 1975 and there has been 10 Cricket World Cup winners to this day, with the leading team being Australia with 4 wins, India and the West Indies each have two wins and Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the other two winners. India are the current World Champions 2011, although before this time Australia were highly dominant with three consecutive World Cup wins. Australia and New Zealand will host the next World Cup in 2015, whilst England will host the following World Cup in 2019.