ICC Champions Trophy was a One-Day International tournament which was launched in the year 1998. The tournament was initially held two years once but from 2009 it is held every four years until it was scrapped after the 2017 edition.
Previously It Was Known As ICC Knockout Tournament
The tournament was originally intended for the development of the game in non-Test playing countries at that time like Bangladesh and Kenya.
However, after the commercial success of the first two editions, the ICC has decided to hold the tournament in countries like India and England where there is a huge presence of the game.
The tournament was originally named as ICC Knockout Tournament when it was first launched in 1998 as all the matches were knock-out matches.
It was initially designed as a knock-out tournament as the organizers wanted the tournament to be short and did not want to diminish the importance of the world cup.
But from 2002 the name of the tournament changed to Champions Trophy and the knock-out format was replaced by round-robin format, though the duration of the event is still short that lasts for over two weeks.
The number of participating nations varied over the course of the history of the tournament. In the first tournament, only the 9 Test playing countries participated and even Bangladesh which hosted it was not part of the competition as it was not a Test-playing nation at that time.
From 2000 to 2004 associated members played in the event with 11 nations taking part in the year 2000 and 12 countries in both 2002 and 2004.
In 2006 tournament the top 10 teams in the ODI rankings participated. From 2009 onwards the top 8 ODI teams competed.
Until 2006 the event was held biannually and after the 2009 tournament, it was scheduled to be held every four years.
The 2008 event which was supposed to be held in Pakistan was moved out of the country for security reasons. Instead, it was held in South Africa in 2009.
The Tournament Is Now Defunct
South Africa was the inaugural champion in 1998. India and Australia won the trophy twice, the highest number of times any team won.
The current champion is Pakistan who won the tournament in 2017 beating India in finals. After the 2017 edition, the ICC decided to discard the tournament as it feels similar to the world cup and its 2021 version has been replaced by the T20 world cup.
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