By Karthik Kannan

This year’s Champions Trophy would see more of high quality 50 over games, considering the fact the 8 best test playing sides are to participate. The new format is great for the game, as it cuts out the clutter and has only games that are of high value to the spectator. In the age of the fast and exciting T20’s, One day cricket needs to make sure it doesn’t commit any faux pas with respect to scheduling irrelevant tournaments.

The previous edition of the Champions Trophy in India(2006) was a dull and dragging affair which almost felt like a world cup. The trophy lost its meaning of Champions trophy, as they included 10 teams in the 2006 edition with a qualifying round among teams ranked 7-10, from which the top 2 made it to the final 8 and then the actual tournament started. The top 6 teams were picked on the basis of freezing their points at a pre determined time a few months prior to the tournament. It was a good move by the ICC to knock off the qualifying rounds, as even though the thought of a qualifying round does elicit some interest on the grounds of upset possibility, it also robs the tournament of some precious time. The upset did happen with West Indies having a dream run to the final after being snubbed out for 80 runs in a qualifying game against Sri Lanka. Australia won the champions crown.

Each edition seemed an improvement over the other edition, and the 2008 edition seems to be much better than the 2006 edition, in the sense that one does feel like it’s a big tournament, but not so big enough to drag with inconsequential matches. The 2004 edition in England saw a unique format that was had 4 groups, and the winner of each group made it to the semifinal. Smaller groupings of 3 teams, meant that there were lesser matches to play, and since it directly leads to 2 semifinal slots, the tournament was also over quickly. The only thing not befitting a Champions trophy was that teams like USA, Kenya and Zimbabwe playing in 50% of the matches in that tournament. ICC’s goal of giving the fringe teams opportunities was at its peak, and they soon realised that having such teams only dilutes the essence of a Champions trophy, and made slight improvements to its next edition in India, which did not require the top 6 teams to play with the minnows, while the 4 bottom rung teams fought it out for redemption to make it to the main draw. The resurgence of the West Indies in this tournament was the best thing to happen in the Caribbean isles for a while.

The 2002 edition in Sri Lanka, was a rain marred tournament, and it was here that the talk of the team coming of age of the India team was talked about under Saurav Ganguly’s reign and India had come here in the midst of fighting with the BCCI over player contracts scheme. The format for the 2002 tournament was similar to the 2004 tournament and the same experiment with emerging nations was being tested in the 2002 edition as well. There were 4 pools of 3 teams each, with 1 minnow in each group and the tournament toppers making the cut to the semis. This tournament was the only tournament where the final was rained out twice and the trophy had to be shared between India and Sri Lanka.
Moving onto the 2000 edition, Champions Trophy was basically a knock out tournament. The venue was Kenya, and it was keeping in times with the ICC mantra of wanting to hold the knock out tournament at emerging country venues, to promote the game outside the 9 test playing nations. This tournament, having 11 teams did not have a structure of pools for teams and was organised with 5 nations getting to play the quarterfinals directly while the other 6 combated in pre-quarter finals to get the other 3 quarterfinal slots. No formula was arrived to calculate which teams made the quarterfinals and which had to compete for the pre quarters and it is this aspect that was bettered in the 2002 edition which saw a more formal structure. This edition had a humdinger of a final which India being pipped to the post by a Chris Cairns special.

The inaugural edition was held at Bangladesh in 1998.The Wills International Cup was christened the Mini World cup, and then Bangladesh was the cynosure of all eyes, as it slowly started playing more cricket, and to make the game popular in this part of the world, which had huge crowds coming in to watch irrespective of their home side not playing, meant a lot of consumer interest and moolah to be raked in. The tournament conceived all of a sudden, was not planned through for a structure to be in place and it was a knockout format with 4 quarterfinals, 2 semifinals and a final. Since Zimbabwe had to be included in the scheme of things, a pre-quarterfinal between Zimbabwe and New Zealand had to be there as an extra match to get the 8 quarterfinalists in place. The shortest tournament in the Champions Trophy history to be conducted, but it would be remembered for the fact that Hansie Cronje finally silenced his critics that South Africa were chokers in finals, with a victory in the inaugural edition.304399