CRICKET: STAND UP FOR THE CHAMPIONS
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.