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 eight-team 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.
