

One of the most open World Cups in cricket history gets under way on 19 February and you'll be able to follow all the excitement on the BBC.

There will be ball-by-ball commentary on Test Match Special, extensive coverage at bbc.co.uk/cricket and daily highlights on BBC television, the red button and online.The tournament is being played across three countries - India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - and you can make a pretty strong case for most of the teams taking part having a good chance of lifting the trophy. But equally all the favoured sides seem to be having a few things going against them.

Australia have won the last three tournaments and showed some good form in their recent one-day win over England - but are still a side with issues and have lost Mr Cricket after the injury to Mike Hussey.

India may start as favourites with the advantage of playing at home - but that can also bring unbelievable pressure.

Spinner Muttiah Muralitharan will be looking to inspire another of the co-hosts Sri Lanka to victory in his final tournament before international retirement, but they are a team in transition.

South Africa seem strong again with what looks like an interesting mix of youth and experience and players like Jacques Kallis and Hashim Amla in great form, but there is always that question mark about them winning tight matches at the climax of tournaments.







Australia are aiming to win the World Cup for the fourth consecutive time. Photo: Getty

You can even make a case for outsiders like Bangladesh. The format of the competition, with two groups of seven teams and the top four qualifying for the knockout stage, means that any side reaching the quarter-finals only has to win three matches in a row to win the trophy.

Bangladesh are likely to play a quarter-final at home in Dhaka and with prestigious talents like Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan you can't dismiss their chances of causing a major upset.

Not many gave Sri Lanka a hope of victory in 1996 remember. Equally you can't rule out teams like Pakistan or New Zealand despite both teams recent struggles on and off the pitch .

Then there is England of course. Three weeks ago people were talking confidently about their chances after the excitement of the Ashes victory - but the heavy ODI series defeat by Australia has at least dampened expectations especially with several injury concerns disrupting preparations - the loss of Eoin Morgan being a particularly huge blow.

But coach Andy Flower and captain Andrew Strauss are masters of the re-group - and England will go into the tournament still with a chance of adding the 50 over title to the Twenty20 crown they secured last year.

You will be able to hear ball-by-ball commentary on all of England's matches at the World Cup on BBC Radio - but Test Match Special will have much more than just coverage of the England games.

There will be 25 commentaries on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra with 20 of the matches also on Radio Four long wave, starting with the opening game of the tournament between co-hosts Bangladesh and India.

We will then bring you the cream of the other group fixtures including such tasty looking games as India v England, Sri Lanka v Pakistan and Australia against New Zealand and then we will have commentary on all the games from the quarter final stage.

Jonathan Agnew will lead the TMS team, which includes Michael Vaughan who captained England at the last World Cup, and the former India captain Sourav Ganguly who only retired from playing cricket a few days ago. Ganguly led India in the 2003 World Cup final against Australia.

We'll also be joined by two World Cup winners, India legend Sunil Gavaskar who played in the first four tournaments. He played in that shock victory over the West Indies at Lord's in 1983 and Rameez Raja who took the winning catch when Pakistan won the cup beating England in 1992

We have two other former World Cup finalists - Geoff Boycott who played at Lord's in 1979 and Ian Chappell who captained Australia in the first World Cup final in 1975 plus Vic Marks who was in the England team which reached the semi-final in 1983.



We will of course have plenty of coverage of Ireland who will be looking to repeat their giant killing antics of four years ago. Former Irish captain Alan Lewis who played 121 times for Ireland will be part of our team.

Joining Aggers with ball-by-ball commentary will be Simon Mann, Christopher Martin Jenkins, Simon Hughes and Kevin Howells and we have assembled top commentary talent from around the World including Tony Cozier, Bryan Waddle, Glen Mitchell, Roshan Abeysinghe and Shamim Chowdhury.

Five Live will also have extensive coverage with regular updates from matches and reports from across the tournament.

Alison Mitchell will bring daily news from inside the England camp, Adil Ray will be out and about finding out what is happening behind the scenes and Rahul Tandon will have all the latest news from India.

Plus Mark Pougatch will join the team from the quarter final stage to host some special programmes and Phil Tufnell will present his "World Cup Cricket Show" as part of Five Live Sport starting on the 24th February.

There will be plenty of coverage on the BBC World Service with Lee James presenting special programmes from around the tournament.

BBC TV will have a daily highlights programme across all 37 days of the tournament with Manish Bhasin, Rishi Persad and Sonali Shah presenting from across the subcontinent.

As well as the best of each days action there will be features, interviews and analysis with a host of big name guests. You will be able to watch the programme every evening from 10pm on the red button and at various times on BBC 2.

And the definitive place online for World Cup news, highlights and features will of course be at bbc.co.uk/cricket with video highlights, text commentaries, blogs, big name columns and pictures from behind the scenes. bbc.co.uk/cricket will also be the hub for the best Twitter links including @aggerscricket , @tmsproducer , @alisonmitchell and @cricket_mann. Commentary will also be available online for UK listeners.



We'll have plenty of news from the opening ceremony and the warm-up matches before the first commentary at 0800 GMT next Saturday.

