New Zealand to play all their World Cup pool games at home

 

WELLINGTON: New Zealand will host 23 gamesacross seven grounds with the Black Caps playing all their pool games on home pitches while Australia must cross the Tasman to play the Kiwis in Auckland.

(FB AWESOM HERO)

The other New Zealand venues are Christchurch, which hosts the tournament opener between New Zealand and Sri Lanka on Valentine´s Day, Wellington, Hamilton, Napier, Dunedin and Nelson.

All grounds have been declared ready with the purpose-built Hagley Oval in Christchurch recently rated a quality venue by the New Zealand and Sri Lanka players after they staged a dress rehearsal for the World Cup opener.

A focus on the build up to the World Cup has been on security with New Zealand World Cup chief executive Therese Walsh warning it will be tight.

"There will be security profiling, there´ll be random pat downs, there will be bag searches," she said.

Martin Snedden, a former New Zealand cricket international and chief executive for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, said recent terror attacks in Paris and Sydney would create a sense of urgency.

"You´re not working with theory, you´re working with something that can definitely happen and the examples in Sydney and France prove that you´re not just ticking a box here -- you´re actually doing something because we may need it," he said.

Match-fixing is the other risk hanging over the tournament.

Players are being warned of the possibility of being approached by match-fixers, possibly using "honey traps" where glamorous women lure players into compromising situations and then blackmail them.

"I have no doubt that match-fixing groups will be looking at New Zealand and that they have had people on the ground in New Zealand previously," New Zealand Players Association chief executive Heath Mills told the Herald on Sunday. (AFP)