However weak the opposition, the tournament’s format means that one NEGATIVE RESULT CAN KNOCK A TEAM OUT. There is little time for sides to ease themselves into the competition. Therein lies the beauty of the Champions Trophy, writes SHREEDUTTA CHIDANANDA.
The ICC Champions Trophy was meant to have disappeared from our sightsfour years ago, strangely phased out in favour of a proposed World Test Championship. Following the success of the 2013 edition, though, the ICC resurrected the Champions Trophy in early 2014, instead doing away with the World Test Championship.
“IT PROVED IMPOSSIBLE to come up with a format for a four-team-finals event in Test cricket that fits the culture of Test cricket and preserves the integrity of the format,” an ICC press release in February 2014 said. “The most recent ICC Champions Trophy event proved to be very popular with supporters around the world and the future events will build on this success. It’s also an event that any ICC Member (including the top Associate Members) can aspire to qualify for by improving their performances in ODI cricket. With the ICC Champions Trophy alongside the ICC Cricket World Cup and ICC World Twenty20 and the formats and venues already confirmed for all of these events the ICC has a really attractive package for 201523 to take to the market.”
IT IS AS PART OF THIS ‘attractive package’ that the 2017 Champions Trophy arrives, an 18-day competition in the UK with no inconsequential fixtures. There is no need, unlike the World Cup, to wait a whole month for the knock-outs. “On a few previous occasions, I felt there were a lot of other Associate nations and it had kind of devalued the Champions Trophy. But this time a couple of weeks and it was over. The little changes which ICC made here, the players really enjoyed it. Tournaments like this would certainly help the game,”
Ricky Ponting noted in 2009,when the Champions Trophy had first switched to an eight-team format.
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