 It has been announced that the 2009 edition of the Champions Trophy will have
its prize money increased from around $1m last time, to $4m this time around.
The last Champions Trophy was played in India in 2006, and was hosted by
Mohali, Mumbai, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. This time around, South Africa is
the host country and there will only be two venues, Centurion and Johannesburg.
The tournament had earlier been planned to be played in Pakistan in
2008, but could not be hosted by the country because many of the sides backed
out from playing in Pakistan. This was because of the issues with security in
the country. The tournament was then postponed to 2009, and a date was set aside
with a great difficulty because of the jam-packed international cricketing calendar.
The venue was also shifted to South Africa.
The Champions Trophy 2009 will see eight teams fight for the crown, unlike
the last edition where there were ten. The tournament will also last for only
15 days as compared to the near one month last time around because of the qualifying
rounds. There had been ten sides in the previous tournament and the top six
had qualified for the tournament directly, while the bottom four had to go through
a qualifying round of games to decide the top two who would join the other six.
West Indies, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe played the round-robin
and Lanka and the West Indies had managed to make it through.
Australia had gone on to win their first Champions Trophy by beating West Indies
in the final. Earlier, in a league game, the West Indians had beaten Australia.
This time around, India and Pakistan have been drawn in the same group, along
with the two finalists of last edition, Australia and West Indies. The
other group has England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand.
South Africa and New Zealand were the losing semi-finalists of the 2006 version.
The four teams in each group will play a round robin amongst themselves and
the top two from each group will make it to the semi-finals.
This time around, the tournament will be played between 22nd September and
5th October.
Haroon Lorgat, the CEO of the ICC said, "This short, sharp event,
with its new format involving only the top eight sides in the world in nation-versus-nation
action, should be a fantastic spectacle to follow on from the others that have
already taken place in the ICC's centenary year." He also thanked South
Africa for stepping in as hosts after Pakistan wasn't allowed to host the tournament
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