The Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men’s cricket. It is a One Day International event, also known as an ODI. The first international cricket match was in 1844 played between the US and Canada, but the first credited test match was not until 1877 between Australia and England.

In the 1900 Olympics in Paris, cricket was included as an Olympic sport and England won against France, winning the gold medal. In 1912, the first Triangular Tournament was played which was a tournament involving all three of the test playing countries of that time which were England, South Africa and Australia. This was not very successful and so in the following years only two teams played in a tournament until 1999, when the next multilateral tournament was played called the Asian Test Championship.

Over time, the number if international test cricket teams increased. In 1928 West Indies became a test team, followed by New Zealand in 1930, India in 1932 and Pakistan in 1952. However, throughout this time international test matches continued to be bilateral (two countries).

In the 60s, English country cricketers began playing one day short games, beginning with the Midlands Knock-Out Cup in 1962. Another one day tournament was played in 1963 called the Gillette Cup and interest in one day cricket grew rapidly in England.

In 1969 the National Sunday League was established. Then in 1971 the first One Day International (ODI) event was played, as a five day test match had the final day washed out due to rain, so the day was overtaken with the ODI.

As the One Day Internationals became more and more popular, the International Cricket Council began thinking about the idea of starting a world cup. The opening Cricket World Cup was held in 1975 in England, as it was the only country at that time that had enough resources to hold the event.

The tournament kicked off on 7 June 1975, and the first three Cricket World Cup tournaments were held in England and were sponsored by Prudential, therefore the tournament was named the Prudential World Cup.

Eight countries competed in the first events, which were England, West Indies, New Zealand, Australia, India and Pakistan, the only six test nations at that time, and Sri Lanka and East Africa. At that time South Africa were banned from international cricket because of apartheid. The West Indies won the tournament.

The ICC Trophy competition was introduced in the Cricket World Cup of 1979 to select new non-test teams for the World Cup tournament. Sri Lanka and Canada qualified. The West Indies again won the competition beating England. In 1987 the World Cup was held outside England for the first time in Pakistan.

Then in 1992 it was held in Australia, and the 1996 World Cup was held in India for the second time. The 2003 World Cup was hosted by Kenya and Zimbabwe, followed by the West Indies in 2007. This meant that it was the first tournament to have been held in all six populated continents of the world.