Next to the World Cup, the 50-over ICC Champions Trophy is considered the toughest cricket tournament. Held after every four years since 2009, the competition was supposed to be phased out in 2013 when the last edition was played in England. But after some rethinking on the part of the International Cricket Council, it is once again very much alive and kicking — at least until 2021 — after the game’s governing body decided to scrap the World Test Championship.

In the initial years, the first five Champions Trophy editions were held after every two years before the next one was played three years later after Pakistan was denied the opportunity to host the 2008 tournament owing to security fears and South Africa was picked as the venue for the 2009 edition.

With the World Cup just two years away from now the main point of discussion during the upcoming event, to be hosted by England for the third time, will be how the eight competing nations fare. From June 1 onwards, the focus will be purely on cricket as eight countries slug it out on the playing fields in London, Birmingham and Cardiff.

Beginning June 1, the ICC Champions Trophy will have eight of the finest cricketing sides slug it out at three venues in England

Significantly, the tournament starts off with one of the former champions missing, after West Indies failed to be among the top-eight ranking teams at the cutoff point on Sept 30 last year. The main beneficiary in this case turns out be the once-unheralded Bangladesh who have been on the rise after reaching the 2015 World Cup quarter-finals.

The Champions Trophy was initially launched knock-out event, in which a side headed back home straightaway after losing a match. The formula persisted only for the first two editions staged in Bangladesh (1998) and Kenya (2000). The winners in those infancy years of the competition were South Africa and New Zealand, two sides who have never been able to lift a major trophy since, be it the 50-over World Cup or the World Twenty20. This is something of a jinx which none of these countries has managed to get away from.

Pakistan, on the other hand, may have won the 1992 World Cup and the 2009 World Twenty20 but, curiously enough, they are yet to lift the Champions Trophy in which they have never progressed beyond the semi-final stage. Four years ago they even failed to win any of their three group fixtures when Misbah-ul-Haq led the men in green.

Despite being labelled as a team still struggling hard to adapt to the modern style of play, Pakistan still possess a lot of hope and promise as they head into the 2017 Champions Trophy under a new leader in Sarfraz Ahmed. Unlike the past few Pakistan captains, the 30-year-old wicket-keeper/batsman has shown natural flair and aggression to match the requirements of the current form of global one-day game in the handful of fixtures in which he has skippered the country.

To start with, combative Sarfraz could find the going rough but there is no doubt that he means business whenever he is out there on the field. Mickey Arthur, the head coach, approves the kind of captaincy he has seen in Sarfraz. But there is one area where the new Pakistan skipper must improve. At times during the recent West Indies tour, Sarfraz in his first series as full-time captain was often spotted getting edgy and restless if someone misfielded or the bowler didn’t deliver according to a devised strategy.

To win the hearts and respect of his team-mates, Sarfraz needs to take a middle route. With the passage of time, he will hopefully get better at handling players, for his own sake.

Pakistan are fortunate that they have been afforded the opportunity to arrive in England much earlier than any of their previous two trips to the British Isles. By the time they take the field against their fiercest rivals, India, at Edgbaston in the undisputed ‘game of the tournament’ next Sunday, Sarfraz and his team should be accustomed to the alien playing conditions, despite being in sunny climes in the Caribbean for nearly seven weeks.

The critics, especially those back home, unsurprisingly remain skeptical about Pakistan’s prospects this time despite the efforts of both Arthur and Sarfraz to change the mindset of the team. Positivity is the code word for both the captain and the head coach who together believe this is the appropriate formula to seriously challenge the best in the business of one-day cricket. Only last August Pakistan’s pedestrian bowling attack was taken to the cleaners by England batsmen who amassed a world record 444-3 in 50 overs at Trent Bridge. Wahab Riaz had suffered the humiliation of recording the worst figures for his country when the left-armer gave away 110 runs in 10 overs, including 72 in boundaries.

Pakistan shouldn’t fear playing defending champions India despite never having won a single World Cup or World Twenty20 game against them. In head-to-head Champions Trophy matches, Pakistan lead 2-1, having won at Johannesburg (2009) and Edgbaston (2004).

If anything, Pakistan should draw inspiration from West Indies, who for year after year have been going through an unending period of turmoil. But for once they put their troubles behind them to emerge the most unlikely winners of the Champions Trophy. That happened in the September of 2004 during an event described by the Wisden almanac as full of insipid, forgettable moments.

Pakistan are fortunate that they have been afforded the opportunity to arrive in England much earlier than any of their previous two trips to the British Isles

The final at The Oval produced a stirring finish. Wisden recalls in its match report: “For a region devastated by various opponents on the cricket field, and by Hurricane Ivan and Jeanne off it, this was a victory to savour. The reactions of the players immediately after [Ian] Bradshaw struck the winning boundary told the story – the entire West Indian party roared on to the field in semi-darkness, hugging, kissing, and screaming, ecstatic yet bewildered by their achievement.”

Chasing 218, West Indies were down in the mire at 147-8. England were moving in for the kill in their quest for a maiden ICC silverware just as Bradshaw, better acclaimed for his left-arm medium-paced bowling, arrived in the centre to join Courtney Browne.

The 18,600 in attendance on an autumn Sept 25 evening in London watched a gradual shift as England captain Michael Vaughan switched his bowlers around in desperation to separate the Barbadian pair. The London-born Browne, a wicket-keeper/batsman who is now West Indies’s chairman of selectors, and man-of-the-match Bradshaw scripted an implausible two-wicket victory for the West Indies in a 71-run partnership with only seven balls remaining.

While the West Indies were the unexpected recipients of their first 50-over trophy for the first time in 25 years after annexing the first two World Cup titles (when England played as hosts in 1975 and 1979), Australia have twice been Champions Trophy winners and are the only nation to have successfully defended the title.

The Indians stand a good chance of emulating the Australians if they repeat their triumph of 2013 when torrential rain in Birmingham reduced the final at Edgbaston to a 20-over affair. However, for Virat Kohli it won’t be a cakewalk like for his predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni four years ago. The chief reason for this is the huge improvement in England’s overall game. The failure to reach the last-eight round of the World Cup had hurt the Englishmen so much that they got rid of a quiescent approach towards limited-overs cricket.

Eoin Morgan now leads a squad of multitalented individuals who are rated among the world’s best. The one thing that goes against them is that no country has delighted home crowds in the history of the competition. Sri Lanka came the closest in 2002 but rain washed out the final against India not once but twice on separate days. Even after 110 overs were delivered over two successive days in Colombo, the organisers were left with no choice but to declare both of them as joint champions.

Current one-day world champions Australia, South Africa, England and India are tipped to make the knock-out round but Pakistan’s unpredictability could force a change in the script, while New Zealand generally have the tendency to produce their best when the chips are down.

That leaves Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka are undergoing a transitional period and the English conditions could be tough for their young bunch to handle. The same theory applies to Bangladesh who have overtaken Pakistan in the ODI team rankings and a good showing in the Champions Trophy could earn them automatic qualification for the 2019 World Cup in England.

Therefore, pressure will definitely be on Pakistan to avoid taking a plunge below their current eighth ranking before the Sept 30 deadline. After three last-four finishes in 2000, 2004 and 2009, they are dreaming of lifting their maiden title in the post-Afridi era. A lot will hinge on how well Shoaib Malik performs. One of the few players to figure in six separate Champions Trophy competitions, the 35-year-old is on a purple patch and he could be Pakistan’s talisman.

Elsewhere, there are other familiar faces such as Hashim Amla, A.B. de Villiers, David Warner, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Shakib Al Hasan, Angelo Mathews, Joe Root and Ben Stokes plus new faces such as Jasprit Bumrah, Kagiso Rabada and Kusal Mendis. They are probably the ones to watch out for. But don’t rule out Pakistan finding their own heroes.

The writer is a member of staff

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 28th, 2017