Cricket in Australia
In 2007, "The Age" reported that a survey by Sweeney Sports had found that 69% of the Australian public have an interest in cricket, second to none. Cricket is often known as Australia's national sport due to its equal popularity in all parts of the country. Cricket is also a mass participation sport in Australia: a census conducted on behalf of Cricket Australia found that in the 2003–04 season there were 471,329 participants in Australian cricket programmes and competitions, including 47,780 female participants.
In 2015–16, a record 1,300,000 Australians played formal, organised cricket during the year, an increase of nine percent over the previous year, making cricket Australia's biggest participant sport.
List of Cricket World Cup finals
The Cricket World Cup is an international cricket competition established in 1975. It is contested by the men's national teams of the members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's global governing body. The tournament generally takes place every four years. Most recently, the 2015 Cricket World Cup, jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, was won by Australia, who beat their co-hosts New Zealand. The current trophy was instituted in 1999. It always remains with the ICC, and a replica is awarded to the winning team. 
Nations with Test status automatically qualify for the World Cup, while associate and affiliate ICC members must qualify through a qualification tournament, the World Cup Qualifier. Though an associate member is yet to reach the final, Kenya did reach the semi-finals in 2003. Australia is the most successful team in the competition's history, winning five tournaments and finishing as runner-up twice. Twice, teams have won successive tournaments: the West Indies won the first two editions (1975 and 1979) and Australia won three in a row (1999, 2003 and 2007). Australia has played in the most finals (seven out of eleven: 1975, 1987, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2015). England is the team to reach the final and not win the World Cup most often, ending as runner-up in all three final appearances.