1992 Cricket World Cup

Rule changes
The 1992 World Cup was the first to be held in Southern hemisphere. Australia had been hosting One Day Internationals since the beginning of the World Series Cup in 1979 with white cricket balls, coloured player clothing and black sightscreens, however, 1992 would be the first cricket World Cup to feature any of these.[1]

The format was changed from the 1987 World Cup so that the qualifying round would be played as one complete round robin without the use of qualifying groups. The initial draw was released with eight competing countries and 28 matches. Then in late 1991, South Africa were re-admitted to the International Cricket Council and the draw was changed to include them. The qualifying round would now require 36 matches.

The rule for calculating the target score for the team batting second in rain-affected matches was also changed. The previous rule simply multiplied the run rate of the team batting first by the number of overs available to the team batting second. This rule was deemed to be too much in favour of the team batting second. In an attempt to rectify this, the target score would now be calcuated by the "highest scoring overs" formula. In this system, if the team batting second had 44 overs available, their target score would be one greater than the 44 highest scoring overs of the team batting first. While the reasoning behind the system seemed sound, the weaknesses of this rule would be exposed during the World Cup.


Teams
The 1992 World Cup featured the seven Test teams of the day, South Africa, who would play their first Test in 22 years in the West Indies a month after the World Cup, and Zimbabwe, who would play their first Test match later in 1992. Teams who entered were:

Australia
England
India
New Zealand
Pakistan
South Africa
Sri Lanka
West Indies
Zimbabwe