England were the hosts for the most recent edition of the event in 2004 - but at one stage were in danger of losing staging rights after initially refusing to tour Zimbabwe that year.

Scheduling the tournament late in the summer, with games starting early and ticket prices high, did nothing to boost a flagging appetite for the competition.

There were more novelties - umpires were wired for sound and the USA were surprise qualifiers from a competition for the emerging nations.

Predictably, they were thrashed by New Zealand and Australia, but more intriguing was the revival of England and the West Indies...