828 balls to be used in next year's World Cup

Kingston, Jamaica, Dec 15 (UNI) The 828 balls for next year's World Cup have arrived in the West Indies with 184 sets of stumps, and covers for all match and practice venues scheduled to arrive next month as the Caribbean enters the last phase of its preparations for the mega event.

The balls were specially ordered from Australia and will cover quotas for Match Days, practice sessions, obligations to teams and Match Day replacement balls. They were recently received by CWC Headquarters here, the ICC CWC 2007 said in a statement.

Every warm-up match will be allocated 14 balls and 30 balls will be given per Group Stage and per Super 8 venue. The organisers have set aside 12 balls per Semi-Final and Final.

''Each of the 16 teams is also entitled to receive practice balls throughout the Cricket World Cup. In keeping with theme of the 'Best Cricket World Cup Ever', CWC has been very generous with the allocation of balls to teams,'' ICC CWC 2007 Cricket Operations Director Michael Hall said.

''If a team makes it to the Semi-Final next year, they would have already received 30 practice balls by that stage - and that supersedes previous Cricket World Cups,'' he added.

Mr Hall also revealed that 79 sets of 'ICC night blue' specially-branded stumps will arrive next month.

''There is a complete set of stumps per match -- 16 Warm-ups and 51 games in the Event proper -- (totalling 67 sets) and a spare set for each of the 12 competition venues as back-up,'' he said.

''CWC has also ordered 105 sets of plain stumps for the practice venues across the nine Host countries,'' he elaborated.

Covers for pitches and outfields for the matches and practice venues are slated to arrive next month as well.

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