ICC Champions Trophy: A flashback of the tournament

ICC Champions Trophy 2013

MSD became the only captain to win all three major ICC tournaments with this win

After the 2009 edition, ICC decided that this tournament will be played after a gap of four years, like the World Cup. Again, the top eight teams were divided into groups of four, with the top two making it to the semifinals of the tournament which was played in England and Wales.

Australia, probably for the first time, were not one of the favourites and finished bottom of their group comprising of themselves, England, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. England looked strong on their home turf and finished atop the group with Sri Lanka finishing second. Both the teams from Down Under were eliminated.

In the other group, India won all their three matches, against South Africa, West Indies and Pakistan comfortably. Shikhar Dhawan was the star of the show with two centuries and a composed innings against Pakistan in a low-scoring affair.

The Proteas and West Indies played out a tie as well in a rain-curtailed match and ended up with the same number of points. However, the African team made it to the semi-finals courtesy of a better net run-rate.

The first semifinal between and South Africa was played at the Oval and the hosts trumped the latter by seven wickets, with Stuard Broad and James Tredwell picking up three wickets each and Jonathan Trott scoring a half-century.

The second semifinal saw India restricting Sri Lanka to a paltry 188 before Dhawan and Virat Kohli scored half-centuries to take India home and cement their spot in the final.

The final was set to be played at the Oval, however, continuous rain delayed the start of the match, so much so that the game was reduced to 20-over per side. India batted first but failed to assert their domination over the English bowlers and managed to out 129 runs on the board.

The hosts were cruising towards the title with Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara at the crease, needing 20 runs to win in three overs. However, their wickets fell on consecutive deliveries in the 18^th over and the match flipped on its head.

Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin bowled the final two overs and restricted England to 124 as India won the tournament for the second time in history. This tournament also etched MS Dhoni’s name in history books as he became the only captain to win all three ICC tournaments.

This was supposed to be the seventh and last Champions Trophy, with a Test Championship scheduled to take place in 2017. However, as things turned out, we are set to have yet another edition of the second biggest cricket tournament on the planet.

Leading run-scorer: Shikhar Dhawan (363 runs)

Leading wicket-taker: Ravindra Jadeja (12 wickets)