The Australians suffered no such hiccups and sensing that the Kiwi’s were losing the plot, quickly distanced themselves from their neighbours and retained exclusive hosting privileges.

The errors made by the New Zealand rugby officials cost a number of jobs but cost even more credibility with New Zealand sports fans who came to a general conclusion that New Zealand was incapable of successfully putting on a major hosting show.

This loss of credibility lingered right up to the announcement that New Zealand had secured exclusive rights to host the 2011 rugby world cup. Hardly anyone in the country gave themselves a realistic chance and the successful bid was met with incredulous, albeit pleasant, surprise.

Three years on from the rugby debacle, and Australia and New Zealand are to try their hands once more at co-hosting a major sporting tournament, namely the 2011 Cricket World Cup.

For New Zealand it would be a major coup and a huge economic boost to have the cricket world cup on home soil in the very same year as the equivalent rugby tournament.

For the bid to be successful, a greater level of cooperation and understanding must be demonstrated by both nations than was demonstrated by their rugby counterparts.

This is though, very likely to happen. Australia and New Zealand have successfully co-hosted a cricket world cup before and have the 1992 event to call on as a reference.

More significantly New Zealand have in Martin Snedden a chief executive who is most unlikely to display the kind of commercial and political naivety demonstrated by his rugby counterparts of three years ago.

Australia and New Zealand are up against a proposal from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, with the ICC making their decision during their July annual conference.

I hate to say anything negative, but I would not get your hopes up too high. I strongly suspect that this is actually a 'dummy bid'. There's a strong feeling around that given that the subcontinent is the power in the game financially, that they should have every third World Cup.

However, this has not been 'officially' agreed.And because of that, the reasoning behind this dummy bid is that, to get Australia and New Zealand to drop the bid, the Subcontinent has to give Australia and New Zealand something that they want. Probably support for the 2015 World Cup, but possibly more as well, like touring concessions and the like.

If it IS a serious bid, I do not think it has a chance against the financial power of the subcontinent.

The last time Aus and NZ co hosted the World Cup [in 1992] we won! If they can make they same sort of arrangements this time, I'm ALL up for it.

Well I certainly think Australia and NZ SHOULD have the 2011 World Cup. We have world-class venues and enough of them, we'd get lots of support, and you just know that if India host it they'd have another ruckus over broadcasting rights.

And for those of you worried about "racism" in the stands, it really doesn't happen as much as you think.

Why bother?
I agree with Scott. The Kiwis and the Aussies hate each other more than than the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and Glasgow. Time to end the hypocrisy and admit that you( N. Zealand) screwed up the vote for the next (Football) World Cup with your representative voting for Germany instead of S.Africa and apologize to the world. The name of New Zealand is mud and you don't even play football. No home games for 4 years? what's the matter? The Aussies don't like your Hotels? You don't deserve Cricket or Rugby(O'Driscoll). And I hope N. Zealand rots in Athletic hell..enjoy your Deutchmarks, the world has not forgotten. Especially Africa.

I say we should have a world cup for Tests as well. You know, like they have a world cup in soccer, but they also have an Olympic gold. I guess cricket can handle two major trophies.

So here's my proposal: get the top 4 ranked teams in the world to play each other once, assign points like in first class cricket and get the best two to play a final. As far as feasibility goes, if we can sell the moronic "super" test to television networks, I'm sure more than a handful of TV stations would be drooling at the prospect of covering this 7-Test world cup.

Well I see no reason why Australia and New Zealand shouldn't host the 2011 World Cup. An event like that will get as lot of support here, we have nothing but world-class venues and easily enough of them. If it can be argued that the sub-continent has the same qualities, then I should also point out that almost every time India host a major series, there's a huge ruckus over broadcasting rights which drags on forever, and whenever Pakistan host a major series, there's a huge ruckus over why no one wants to play at Karachi. So if a subcontinental W.C is staged, it probably WILL make more money, but would more than likely be dreadfully inefficient.