A woman looks at the ‘ICC Champions Trophy’ displayed outside the Multan Cricket Stadium during a … [+]
The Champions Trophy is back in the room, but there aren’t that many shouting it from the rooftops. Before losing another game of cricket against India last week at Nagpur, England’s Jos Buttler spoke about how the ODI format has been “pushed towards the margins” as the financial goldmine of T20 franchise cricket rules the dollar dancefloor.
“I still think if you talk to guys about winning a World Cup, they’d probably say a 50-over World Cup ahead of a T20 World Cup at the moment. Whether that continues to be the case moving forward, I don’t know,” said Buttler rather diplomatically.
The England skipper doesn’t have to wait long for what Wisden once dubbed ‘the Mini World Cup.’ February 19 sees the return of the Champions Trophy in Pakistan for its ninth edition after an eight-year hiatus. It is accredited ICC silverware and doesn’t take up 46 days of the calendar. That’s a bonus in an increasingly hectic schedule but also makes it something of a casual arrangement that can be moved around, cancelled and then reinstated like a Trump executive decision.
The tournament originally had a different moniker, the stiffly-named Wills International Cup. The competition was created with the idea of encouraging the growth of the sport outside the mainstream and there was some measure of success in doing that within the first two versions.
Bangladesh was chosen as the host venue in 1998, despite the threats of floods in Dhaka, and remains the only ICC trophy South Africa has won. The seven-day event made an estimated $10 million. Although England sent a B team, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis were some of the stars on show. It sparked a light for Bangladesh cricket (they kept the gate receipts and became a Test nation just two years later). In 2000, it was held in Nairobi and within three years, Kenya had reached the semi-finals of the 2003 World Cup.
The Champions Trophy has always been a difficult sell given that it has the distinct air of a lower-tier competition that carries very little of the gravitas and marketing power of the full-on World Cups. Just as there were problems scheduling it in Dhaka 27 years ago, there have been logistical headaches in 2025 as India refuse to tour Pakistan on continued political grounds.
The current T20 world champions are playing their matches in Dubai where they will meet the hosts for a blockbuster match at the Sports City Stadium. About 24,000 tickets sold out within minutes after being floated online. Wherever Pakistan and India go, masses follow. Unfortunately, the Emirates doesn’t have the capacity of the MCG. The Green Shirts beat the Men in Blue in the 2017 final.
The Champions Trophy has lived a casual life, the distant ICC cousin that it is, revived at a stroke depending on the mood music of the family finances. It was supposed to be scrapped after the 2013 version in England. “We have the World Cup to have the champion for 50-overs cricket. So we are not planning to hold Champions Trophy in the future,” said the then ICC chief executive, Haroon Lorgat. However, that was such a huge commercial success, boosted by India winning the final, that the administrators reversed their decision.
Ultimately, in 2018 the ICC scrapped the 2021 version in favour of back to back T20 World Cups, seeing the shorter format as the dynamic vehicle to grow the game, attract new fans, increase revenue and boost the chances of the format featuring in future Olympics. That box has now been ticked.
Ultimately, the innocent aim of developing nations outside the Test nations is now a decent thought that has been tossed away like the baggy ill-fitting shirts of 1998. Cricket revenue is all about the Big Three – India, Australia and England. The BCCI makes the President of the United States seem impotent in terms of its reach and power over the game with almost 40 per cent of ICC revenue.
India’s captain Virat Kohli (R) and Pakistan’s captain Sarfraz Ahmed, hold the trophy as they pose … [+]
Two-time winners India enter the tournament in rude health after demolishing England and will want to add to their victory at Barbados last June. Australia, who won in 2006 and 2009, are second favorites and South Africa carry firepower too after going so close in the Caribbean. The Proteas and Pakistan shared over 700 runs at Karachi on Wednesday, suggesting that runs will be there for the taking. The 2025 tournament has a league format with two groups made up of those who finished in the top eight positions at the 2023 World Cup.
The Champions Trophy’s place in the schedule so often feels like a confused run out in the middle, but it refuses to be stranded just yet. The 2029 edition is in India. They like their cricket there.
