ICC Champions Trophy: When a T20 match decided the winner of an ODI tournament

After a controversial national T20 event (Read IPL), several international players had to re-adjust their playing style for the ICC Champions Trophy. What’s more intriguing was that this could be the last Champions Trophy as it hardly has any USP considering cricket also has a World Cup event once every four years. Some players from Team India entered the event with hands full of controversies. For example, MS Dhoni; the Indian captain has/had some stake in a sports management firm that included Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and RP Singh as clients. Conflict of interest, anyone?

Team India left all the controversies behind and focused on performing to their potential in the Champions Trophy. They started off very well, a rarity considering the team’s history. India won both their warm up matches and even won all the group stage matches against respected teams like South Africa, West Indies and Pakistan.

South Africa lived up to their reputation of “too-much-capability-but-still-chokers”. Gary Kirsten, the South African coach, reaffirmed the same, quite sadly. Pakistan lived up to their “unpredictable” image by unpredictably losing all three group matches. West Indies were undone by the Duckworth-Lewis system, while in the other group Australia and New Zealand underachieved, allowing home team England and in-form Sri Lankans to qualify for the semifinals.

After defeating South Africa and Sri Lanka, England and India qualified for the grand finale. Only that the final ODI match never was an ODI match - all thanks to the English weather. English weather played spoilsport in the first half and the saviour later on, all in a single day. A prestigious ODI tournament was decided in two innings of 20 overs each. Though India won the tournament and deservedly so, cricket fans were left with many “What if?” questions.

What if it had rained all day? Why did the ICC not have a reserve day for the finals? All the planning that went into organizing what might be the last Champions trophy, accounted for virtually nothing. After having so many matches, some competitive and some not-so-competitive, the fans were expecting two best teams of the tournament to fight it out for 2nd most prestigious cup in the history of ODI cricket.

Cricket is a game that depends on favourable weather conditions and rain is not one of them. Hardly anything can be done when it rains. Having a reserve day/closed stadium are the only solutions available. One argument against the reserve day would be that some tournaments are scheduled immediately after the Champions Trophy.

But aren’t those tournaments needless, or at least less important that a competition featuring all top cricketing teams? Aren’t the other tournaments simply money-minting events just to increase the cricketing revenue without any historic significance or scope for future significance? Generating revenue without any logic/significance/storyline will eventually force the loyal fans to stop following the sport, which will force the sponsors to shy away from cricket, eventually harming the financial aspect of the sport.

Fans are the most important aspect of any game – for sporting reasons as well as financial reasons. The sooner ICC will realize it, the better it will be for cricket.

A true cricket fan would have loved to see the complete India-England final and not just 40% of it. Unfortunately, there’s no place for the fans in the cricketing calendar.