Five lesser known facts about the Champions Trophy

ICC Champions Trophy is the second most prestigious tournament organised by International Cricket Council after World Cup. ICC Cricket World Cup has a bigger profile, and the greats are considered as legends when they win the coveted World Cup title (even Sachin had to live this dream finally). But that tournament is certainly burdened by the mandatory involvement of teams from the lesser cricketing nations. The Champions Trophy has no such pointless distractions. And the competition is limited to the finest cricketing nations in the world. Here are the five lesser known facts about the Champions Trophy.

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The 2017 Champions Trophy is scheduled to take place from June 1 to June 18 in England and Wales. The top eight ODI playing nations which qualified on the basis of the ICC rankings as on 30 September 2015 will battle it out for the ‘Mini World Cup’ Trophy. India is the defending champions of the tournament, as they beat hosts England in the last edition held in 2003. And BCCI after enacting a high drama finally decided to send full strength Team India to retain the title. Here are some surprising facts about the tournament.

Birth of Champions Trophy

In the late 1990s the International Cricket Council (ICC), then headed by influential Indian business tycoon Jagmohan Dalmiya, came up with the philosophy of pumping additional money into the coffers of the game’s governing body by spreading the game to emerging cricketing nations between the quadrennial World Cup, the showpiece event of the ICC. Hence the ICC Champions Trophy was launched with the first two editions titled as the ICC Knockout events, although the first was officially named as the Wills International Cup.