This year the
Champions Trophy was no different from the other editions of this game. It was
full of Drama, Suspense, close encounters and had everything what makes a
tournament successful, apart from that it was FULL on ENTERTAINMENT. There were
some speculation that this was going to be the last edition of CHAMPION’S
TROPHY, but later on it turned out to be FALSE, the ICC council members had a
meeting post the event and decided to continue the event due to its immense
popularity. Coming to this year’s edition of CHAMPIONS TROPHY, the top 8
nations participated in this event which consisted of two groups and with 4
teams in each group. Every team had to play 3 matches in the group, the top two
teams would qualify for the Semifinals. The groups were as follows :
Eventually
from Group B India dominated the group and became the first team to qualify for
the Semi-finals. Group B matches were a bit boring because all the games were
one sided apart from the WESTINDIES vs. SOUTHAFRICA match but it was washed out
due to heavy rain and both the teams had to share a point each, although it
looked like WEST INDIES were inching toward victory but certainly SOUTH AFRICA
was lucky enough that the match washed out due to rain and helps them to
qualify for Semi-Finals as their net run rate was better than the opposition
team.
On the other
half Group A matches were interesting and every team had the chance to qualify
for the Semi-Finals. Especially I loved the SRILANKA vs. NEWZEALAND match as it
was a nail biter. Although it was a low scoring game but it was a wonderful
match. It was Newzealand who handled the pressure well and came out victorious.
The other matches were dominated by ENGLAND as they qualified for the Semi-Finals
and SRI LANKA learning from the mistakes they made in their first match against
NEW ZEALAND fought back and came back winning the rest of their matches
convincingly. They eventually stood second in the group and they too had
qualified for the Semi-Finals.
To be true
both the Semi-Final matches were boring and pretty one sided, ENGLAND
completely dominated against SOTH AFRICA and so was the case with INDIA as they
completely dominated in the match against SRI LANKA. Actually SRI LANKA were
never in the game as from the first ball till the last ball INDIA certainly
never gave them chance to come back in to the match.
This season the two teams who had pretty hard luck were
PAKISTAN and defending Champions AUSTRALIA. They infact did not even win a
single game, although AUSTRALIA managed to get a point as the match between
them and NEW ZEALAND was washed out due to rain. In the whole tournament RAIN
played a vital role in most of the matches.
Now it’s
time for the finals but it was all rain rain and rain. The match was scheduled to be a 50
overs ODI match but due to RAIN it turned out to be a TWENTY20 match. The toss
was won by the home team and chose to ball first. The home team balled pretty
well and restricted the INDIANS to a decent total of 129 which could be easily
attained but in the second half of the game the INDIAN team came out pretty
well and managed to pick wickets in regular interval before EOIN MORGAN and
RAVI BOPARA dismantled the INDIAN bowlers it looked like the ENGLISH team were
gonna clinch the victory for their team but the opposition bowlers fought back
and managed to get wickets of both the set batsmen. After that, it was all INDIA
and they restricted ENGLAND for 124. And finally the Trophy was won by INDIAN
team. I hope you liked this article. Here are some exclusive photos of the
final match and the celebrating INDIAN team with Trophy.
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