Five lesser known facts about the Champions Trophy

Reincarnation of Champions Trophy

Prior to the commencement of 2013 edition, the cricket’s parent body ICC had announced scrapping of this tournament post 2013 games and replacing it with a new ICC World Test Championship. This Test Championship was slated to be played among the top four ranked teams in Test format. The final was proposed to be a “timeless” Test where the teams would have been allowed to bat unlimited overs (until Rahul Gandhi would have decided to leave politics). However, in January 2014, the decision was reversed.

India, the most successful team in Champions Trophy

India has the best winning percentage in Champions Trophy that is 71.42. India has also won the championship twice, but in 2002 , they were declared joint winners with Sri Lanka as final could not be completed due to rain. Sourav Ganguly has been India’s star performer with the bat in this ICC tournament amassing 665 runs from 13 matches. 2000 Champions Trophy event was marked by the memorable debuts of Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan.

India won Champions Trophy in 2013 where Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja made life difficult for batsmen, while Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma combined well to make it five wins in five for the Men in Blue. The tournament saw one of the most entertaining moments when MS Dhoni removed his wicket keeping gloves during India’s semifinal win over Sri Lanka. Surprisingly, he even took a wicket.