ICC Champions Trophy History

In terms of stature and significance, the ICC Champions Trophy ranks second only to the ICC World Cup in the international cricketing calendar. Like the World Cup, this biennial cricket extravaganza too witnesses the major nations fighting it out for the top honours.

The origin of the Champions Trophy can be traced to 1998 and 2000, when the International Cricket Council, the world body for cricket, organized the ICC Knock Out Tournament in Bangladesh and Kenya in an effort to popularize cricket in these traditional soccer bastions. In 2002, the tournament was renamed the ICC Champions Trophy with the format undergoing a drastic makeover.

In the 2002 edition, held in Sri Lanka, the Knock Out format gave way to the Round Robin League format with the 12 teams split into 4 pools based on their official ICC one-day international rankings. Having persisted with the same format in 2004, the ICC has introduced new changes in the format for the 2006 edition.