With Indian cricket reeling from a corruption scandal, the national team can provide some much-needed respite by winning the seventh and final edition of the Champions Trophy and confirming its status as the world’s best 50-over team.
The 18-day tournament featuring the world’s top eight countries starts on Thursday and every team appears to have a realistic chance of capturing the soon-to-be-defunct trophy.
India, though, could well be the team to beat despite being without a host of leading players including Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and, of course, Sachin Tendulkar, who retired from ODIs last year.
The world champions are the top-ranked side, impressed in warmup wins over Sri Lanka and Australia, and will be desperate to bury negative headlines – for a few days at least – of allegations of spot-fixing in the Indian Premier League that have embroiled players and high-ranking officials.
“With the kind of fitness level that is going around right now, each and every member is looking fit,” India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said before flying out for the tournament staged in three cities across England and Wales. “All of them have played good cricket in the IPL or before the IPL. So most of them are in very good touch.”
Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik have been making runs in the warm-ups while its bowling attack, widely regarded as the team’s weak link, tore through Australia – knocking over the holders of the Champions Trophy for just 65 on Tuesday.
Such is the nature of the quick-fire, every-game-counts competition that not even Australia will be discounted over the next two weeks, when the 50-over format returns to the spotlight after being pushed to the background by the popular Twenty20.
India is in Group B with Pakistan, South Africa and West Indies, who are many people’s tip having captured the World Twenty20 last year and won the Champions Trophy in 2004 when it was last held on English soil.
West Indies also has in its armory Chris Gayle, the world’s most destructive limited-overs batsman.
“We can use that victory (in 2004) and we can use the T20 victory last year as positives as we look ahead to this tournament,” Gayle said. “We have a very good allround team so I don’t see any reason when we can’t go all the way again.”
Group A looks just as tight, with England drawn alongside Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
England, the only competing country without a major 50-over title to its name, would have been hoping to benefit from home conditions but has been put in its place following two straight losses to New Zealand in a three-match ODI series ahead of the Champions Trophy. Test cricket is England’s best format and the forthcoming Ashes series could be a distraction for the hosts.
The same could be said for Australia, which won the past two Champions Trophies but has a much weaker squad this time round, so New Zealand looks to be the favorite from that group.
The Kiwis, winner back in 2002 and finalist in ’09, have a good, allround side and will be looking for fireworks from captain Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptill, who has hit successive centuries against England.
“The boys are delighted to come over here and play against a team as good as England, in their own conditions, and have wrapped the series up after two games,” McCullum said on Sunday. “We’ve done it in a fashion that shows how good a team we can be.”
The tournament starts with a match between India and South Africa in Cardiff. The other host cities are London and Birmingham, where the final will be played on June 23.
