the world cup is like the superbowl of cricket (except that the world cup is a tournament not the culmination of a tournament) but because cricket is played by different countries not just states it takes alot more to organise an event like that, so they only have it every 4 years, like the olympics.
Australia, New Zealand, England, India, pakistan, Sri lanka, south africa, The west indies, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh all have garaunteed spots cos they're like the major league teams, then all the lesser teams compete in smaller tournaments in between the world cup to win one of 6 other spots in the world cup. The 2007 world cup is being held in the West Iindies (jamaica, trinidad, barbados etc) NZ and Australia held it in 1992