The Champions Trophy of cricket has returned to the international calendar after a gap of eight years. It was last held in 2017 under the supervision of the International Cricket Council or ICC.
The first thing that comes to mind is the revival. Obviously, the ICC felt it was important to have this tournament. If it is being considered significant enough to be revived then why was it abandoned in the first place, for eight long years?
Another interesting thing to note is the original purpose of the inaugural tournament. The ICC started it in order to boost the financial status of the minnow cricketing nations like Bangladesh and Kenya.
Cricket has evolved considerably since the first edition of the ICC Champions Trophy. The revenue of the major cricketing nations is fairly high as of now, with India being a huge commercial powerhouse. The ICC does not need surplus funds to promote the game.
It would also be fair to conclude that the original purpose of staging this tournament stands defeated. Kenya has actually weakened as a cricketing nation and Bangladesh is yet to become a cricketing power. Zimbabwe and Ireland have fallen by the wayside in terms of their cricketing prowess.
The popularity of the T20 format has actually brought down the attention span of spectators for the One Day International (ODI) format. Many sense that the 50-over-a-side game is now caught in the middle. In a way, it is heartening to know that it’s the ODI format that felt the wrath of the T20 craze and not Test cricket. The latter still enjoys loyalists among the young and older spectators alike.
Older spectators like Test cricket for the nostalgia and for the genuine rivalry it provides between cricketing nations. The Ashes is more popular in England and Australia than ever before and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is a riveting contest. Today, ODI cricket lacks this kind of cult following.
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The problem of saturation
There is another reason why the Champions Trophy suffers. It suffers because of the ODI World Cup.
The Champions Trophy is not the most significant 50-over-a-side cricket tournament; the ODI World Cup is. Perhaps one of the reasons why the Champions Trophy was terminated from the cricketing calendar was because it was competing with the ODI World Cup. Perhaps the ICC authorities were wary that it would be increasingly tough to hold on to two major ODI tournaments as they would bring saturation to the spectators, thereby reducing the popularity of the format itself.
The ICC is on weak grounds if it has to explain its decision to revive the Champions Trophy. It never gave an explanation as to why the tournament was terminated. It has also not given any explanation as to why there is a strong need for it to be revived. This means that Champions Trophy 2025 is a make-or-break moment for the ICC.
Global cricketing authorities have taken a bit of a risk by reviving the tournament. It’s the revenue generated at the end of the tournament that will tell us if it was a worthwhile endeavour.
It would be interesting to find out if the Champions Trophy can retain the full attention of its spectators across the 50-over time span. It seems that T20 cricket is unlikely to cause the downfall of Test cricket but it could hit the popularity of the ODI format. The bigger casualty could be the Champions Trophy because it plays second fiddle to the ODI World Cup.
The fact that the ICC abandoned the Champions Trophy shows that cricketing authorities are confused about this tournament. It is often termed the mini world cup. A mini world cup competing for space with the official world cup, inside the ODI format, seems strange.
It is not surprising that the next edition of the tournament, in 2029, is scheduled to be held in India. Nowhere in the world is cricket’s popularity higher. Pakistan is a close second, when it comes to shorter formats. This itself shows that there is a lack of confidence in the authorities when it comes to the Champions Trophy. It is for this reason that the ICC wants to find the safest spectator bastion for it in India in 2029.
The Champions Trophy remains unpredictable. The ICC does not need the tournament for a financial boost either, the way it did in the early days. It’s increasingly clear that it would be a good idea to scrap the Champions Trophy once and for all and use the space in the cricketing calendar for more bilateral Test series.
Kush Singh is a cricket writer who has closely followed the game over the past four decades. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)