Five Tri-Series which you might have forgotten about
While Test cricket keeps living and dying after every Test result and T20 enjoys the love and affection of plenty, ODIs are having the classic middle child crisis. Puritans of the game have Test cricket in a corner of their heart while T20 attracts the audience who never saw cricket before. In between these two, ODI cricket is gradually losing its prominence.
However, in its glorious past, a few ODI series have been immensely popular. Amidst the bilateral and multinational series, the true favourite of the fans remains to be tri-series. Australia’s Commonwealth Bank series or England’s Natwest series were watched all over the cricket world and were thoroughly enjoyed by the fans.
With not many ODI Tri-series being scheduled nowadays, here are five tri-series that you will never believe actually happened.
1 - Coca-Cola Triangular Series, 1998 (India - Bangladesh - Kenya)
In the vast number of ODIs that India has played, this series seems to have been forgotten amongst the scorecards. In 1998, India indulged in a tri-series with two non-Test playing nations. Such a scenario is unimaginable with today’s Indian team and the fixtures it takes part in.
This triangular series was played in the month of May, which is not the usual playing season in India. Surprisingly all the seven ODIs (two rounds of league matches and one final) were played at different grounds all over India. The final was hosted by Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
India was undoubtedly one of the two finalists but their path to the final was not unblemished. The hosts shockingly lost a match against Kenya at Gwalior as Maurice Odumbe’s all-around performance of 83 and 3/14 stopped India from chasing 266.
In the final, Kenya batting first were all-out for 196 with Venkatesh Prasad taking 4/23. In reply, Sachin Tendulkar scored 100 from 103 balls to drive India home with 9 wickets remaining. Steve Tikolo was named Man of the series for his all-round performances.