ICC Champions Trophy: A flashback of the tournament

ICC Champions Trophy 2009

Ponting was immense for his team in the tournament

For the first time in its 10-year long history, the Champions Trophy was played after a gap of three years, not two. The reason being host for the 2008 edition, Pakistan, were not able to satisfy ICC that their nation is safe enough to host the tourney following an attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus.

The tournament was shifted to South Africa eventually which saw the top eight teams feature in two groups of four each. Australia, the defending champions, won their group, consisting of India, Pakistan and West Indies, comprehensively with Michael Hussey firing for them.

Pakistan were the second team from the group to qualify for the semis as they trumped arch-rivals India and West Indies as well, before losing to Australia in the last group stage encounter.

The other group saw each of South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and England winning one match each. However, when push came to shove, the Kiwis, after losing their opening match, won the remaining two and topped the group. England won a couple of matches as well as hosts South Africa and Sri Lanka bowed out despite putting up a decent show.

Watson, who was the star for Australia in the last edition, took the semifinal against England by storm and bagged a couple of wickets along with belting a century in the second innings to help the Aussies win the match by 9 wickets. Skipper Ricky Ponting scored a century as well and took his team to the final with aplomb.

The second semifinal saw Ian Butler and Daniel Vettori sharing seven Pakistani wickets among them as the Asian giants somehow managed to add 233 runs. Grant Eliott, who as we all know, helped NZ defeat South Africa in the World Cup 2015 semifinal, played a match-winning knock of 75 and along with Vettori’s 41 took his team home.

A Trans-Tasmania final was on the cards and Australia once again stamped their authority as they restricted New Zealand to a score of 200 and then chased the total down with six wickets to spare. Watson was the hero once again as he smashed yet another century and helped Australia to their second CT title.

Leading run-scorer: Ricky Ponting (288 runs)

Leading wicket-taker: Wayne Parnell (11 wickets)