2003 World Cup venues decided

The opening match of the 2003 Cricket World Cup will be held at Newlands in Cape Town and the final will be at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, the United Cricket Board of South Africa announced on Monday.

The opening game is provisionally scheduled as a day-night game on February 7, 2003, with the final planned as a day game on March 18, 2003.

The semi-finals will be held at Kingsmead in Durban and St George's Park in Port Elizabeth.

The announcement was made by UCB managing director Ali Bacher, who will become full-time tournament director of the 2003 World Cup in January 2001.

Bacher said the decisions had been made by a World Cup policy committee after submissions by provincial unions. Bacher said of the decision to award the opening game to Cape Town: "The committee believe that Newlands is one of the famous grounds in world cricket; the city of Cape Town is the perfect setting for the start of the World Cup and the region has shown very strong support for cricket amongst all its peoples."

Newlands is also South Africa's most scenic ground, set against Cape Town's Table Mountain.

Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth will each stage one of the nine Super Six stage games. South Africa's other two Test venues, Centurion and Bloemfontein, will both be awarded two Super Six games, while East London will have one Super Six match.

All six Test venues will also host three pool matches so that each Test venue will host five World Cup matches.

Zimbabwe's pool games will be played in Zimbabwe with the exception of a possible match against South Africa which would be played in South Africa.

Other venues for pool matches have not been finalised but Potchefstroom, Pietermaritzburg and Kimberley will all be awarded at least one game. It has not yet been decided whether Kenya will stage one or more matches.

Mail Cricket Editor