Champions Trophy marred by absurd venue situation

Pakistan and the UAE are co-hosts but where will the final be held? That depends on India,

- Harry Latham-Coyle

Did anyone really miss the Champions Trophy? Quietly canned shortly after the last edition in 2017, few would have noticed the absence of the quirky quadrennial jamboree in the depths of Covid, a tree cut down in the crowded cricketing forest that no one seemed to hear. Did the axeing make a sound? Perhaps a few obsessives might have thought it a loss but the majority would have been perfectly happy for the tournament to be left as a relic of a time pre-pandemic.

But now, out of the International Cricket Council’s unrelenting quest to further saturate a schedule already in spate, this eightteam competition comes careering back onto the calendar. It’s little wonder that the ICC has found cause and time to resurrect the concept; cricket’s governing body is not much more than a glorified events management entity now – and not a particularly good one at that.

Unwilling, it seems, to take a significant stand on the more pressing cricketing issues of the day – say, Afghanistan’s continuing full-member status, or the almost unchecked development of increasingly pointless franchise leagues – the ICC presses on in now annual assemblies of a small coterie of cricketing nations in the name of television and advertising bucks. Between 2024 and 2031, there will be a major men’s white-ball event every year – so much for scarcity value and long-awaited tournament fever.