Bangladesh to host 2011 World Cup opening ceremony

The Central Organising Committee (COC) of the World Cup met here Wednesday and also decided that the inaugural match of the World Cup will be held in Bangladesh Feb 19.

The full schedule of the tournament will be released Nov 9.

India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will jointly host the mega event. Pakistan was scrapped as hosts by ICC due to security issues.

The COC meeting here was held under the chairmanship of ICC Vice-President Sharad Pawar. ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat and representatives of the three host countries were present in the meeting.

'Pakistan was not present in the meeting and will not attend any future meetings of the COC following the settlement made with the ICC last week, whereby it was agreed the Pakistan Cricket Board would be relieved of its obligations as a co-host,' ICC said in a statement.

The meeting also decided to approve the operational plan and the event budget of the tournament.

It fixed the inspection of the venues in October-November.

The recommendations of the COC meeting will now be communicated to the ICC Finance Committee and ICC Board for consideration.

Tournament director Ratnakar Shetty said it was a productive meeting.

'We have continued to make real progress. We are operating at full steam ahead for what should be a great event in 2011.