The 2015 Cricket World Cup Officially Gets Underway

As much as uSports has been talking about the Rugby World Cup, which will take place in London during the second of 2015, this year is also the Cricket World Cup. Last night, the tournament kicked off with the opening ceremony in Hagley Park, New Zealand — the matches are also co-hosted by Australia.

The Cricket World Cup is handled like most World Cups: teams a divided into pools, where they play a round robin. Afterwards, the best of those pools emerge to play in a knockout out tournament.

Here, instead of having multiple pools like soccer and rugby, there are only two: 2015’s Pool A contains Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Sri Lanka. Pool B has India, Ireland, Pakistan, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, West Indies and Zimbabwe.Now, the four best teams from each division will emerge: with them being paired according to ranking for the quarterfinal match of the knockout round.

So what are exactly the rules of the World Cup because cricket could vary between T20, One Day and Test Cricket. Here, they use One Day rules, which as the namesake suggests usually last about a day: the game consists of an inning, and each half an inning has 50 overs. An over is when six balls are pitched to a batter: once six legal bowls are in play, a different bowler is selected as the fielders change sides. In the end, games usually end when all batters from each team have gotten up.

Matches officially get underway on Feb. 14 with Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand opening the tournament. And the World Cup will run until the end of March, with the finals happening on March 29. Stay tuned, as uSports will consistently update you about match scores and those moving on past pool play.