Australia and New Zealand to cooperate on cricket visas

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Australia and New Zealand will jointly host the cricket world cup in 2015. After negotiations between the prime ministers of the two countries, Tony Abbott of Australia and John Key of New Zealand, it has been announced that cricket fans will be able travel to New Zealand for matches during the tournament using an Australian visa.

Ken Morrison of Tourism & Transport Forum Australia said that this would 'make the process simpler and cheaper, encouraging more visitors to travel to both Australia and New Zealand, benefitting the tourism sectors in both countries'.

His counterpart in New Zealand agreed that the agreement was likely to be beneficial to both countries.

February 2015

The 11th ICC Cricket World Cup will begin in February 2015. There will be a total of 49 matches played over 43 days with the final taking place on 29th March 2015.

26 matches will take place in Australia and 23 will be held in New Zealand.

The tournament will feature 14 teams from five continents. These are

  • Afghanistan
  • Australia
  • Bangladesh
  • England
  • India
  • Ireland
  • New Zealand
  • Pakistan
  • Scotland
  • South Africa
  • Sri Lanka
  • United Arab Emirates
  • West Indies
  • Zimbabwe

Big business

Sports tourism is big business. Hosting a world cup in a global sport can attract substantial numbers of tourists. Cricket is not as popular as a global sport as football but Australia and New Zealand expect large numbers of visitors from the UK and from India, where cricket is the national game and is so popular that some call it the national religion.

Sanwar Ali of workpermit.com said 'This seems like a sensible arrangement which will make it easier for cricket fans to attend matches in both countries. If this temporary arrangement works well, it may lead to more lasting cooperation between the two countries. Let's see what happens."

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