ICC Champions Trophy 2017: 5 biggest surprises from the tournament
Surprise (noun): An unexpected or astonishing event
Pakistan winning the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 was as surprising as Leicester City winning the Premier League or Aizawl FC clinching the I-League title. Against all odds, Sarfraz Ahmed and his band of boys conquered the world with brave performances. No one had given them even an atom's chance of going into the knockout stages, let alone winning it.
This tournament, as a whole, turned out to give us a bundle of surprises and on top of that, an India-Pakistan final was a dream showdown for the sponsors and the broadcasters. New players emerged, old warriors let their guard down along with the old powerhouses seeing their power dwindle. On that note, let's take a look at the five biggest surprises coming from the Champions Trophy:
#5 Pitches
England is known for his lively pitches. Conditions which offer swing and decks that offer movement with both bat and ball having a chance in the game. But as has the norm been in the modern cricket, this Champions Trophy saw pitches being extremely flat with absolutely no movement available to the fast bowlers.
300 was a regularity in the first week and the tournament opened up when same pitches were used for multiple matches which made the surface slow. There was little seam movement on offer as the advent of T20 led to the pitches being made for the sake of big run scores instead of a close fair contest between the bat and ball.