ICC Champions Trophy to offer record prize purse

KARACHI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday announced that this year’s ICC Champions Trophy will be a re-modelled short, sharp event with the eight competing teams battling it out for a record prize pool of US$4 million.

According to an ICC statement, the figure is an-almost four-fold increase in the prize money on the 2004 and 2006 editions of the tournament, which saw a total of US$1.15 million on offer on each of those occasions.

The funds are at stake during an event of 15 matches in only 14 days in September and October taking place at two South African venues — Centurion Park and The Wanderers. For the first time the tournament will feature only the top eight sides in the world in the only global multi-team 50-over-a-side tournament between the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean and the next edition of that event, in the sub-continent in two years’ time.

Those teams — Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, hosts South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies — have been divided into two pools of four, with the top two from each pool progressing to the semifinals stage.

The action begins on September 22 with hosts South Africa facing Sri Lanka in a day-night encounter at Centurion Park and it will end with a day-night final at the same venue on October 5.

ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat 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.”

The ICC Champions Trophy began life as the ICC Knock-Out in 1998 and was played every two years through the 2006, changing its name for the 2002 edition.

The sides to have won the event are South Africa (in Bangladesh, 1998), New Zealand (Kenya, 2000), India and Sri Lanka (joint winners after the final was washed out in Sri Lanka, 2002), the West Indies (England, 2004) and Australia (India, 2006).