ICC Champions Trophy

The ICC Champions Trophy is a One Day International cricket tournament, second in importance only to the Cricket World Cup. It was inaugurated as the ICC Knock Out tournament in 1998 and has been played every two years since, changing its name to the Champions Trophy in 2002. Originally, all ten full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) took part, together with (for the first four competitions) two associate members. From 2008, this will be changed to the 8 highest-ranked ODI teams as placed 6 months out from the tournament.The Champions Trophy differs from the World Cup in a number of ways. The Champions Trophy takes place every two years, while the World Cup is held every four years. The matches in the Champions Trophy are held over a period of around two weeks, while the World Cup can last for over a month. Unlike the World Cup, no team plays another more than once in the Champions Trophy. For 2002 and 2004, twelve teams played a round robin tournament in four pools of three, with the top team in each pool moving forward to the semi-final). A team would play only four games (two in the pool, semi-final and final) to win the tournament. In 2006, eight teams played in two pools of four, with the top two teams in each pool playing in the semi-finals. Losing even a single match would potentially mean elimination from the tournament.The format used in the Knock Out tournaments differed from the formats used in the Champions Trophy. The competition was a straight knock out, with no pools and the loser in each game being eliminated. Only 8 games were played in 1998, and 10 games in 2000. The Australian team lost to India early on in both tournaments and was critical of the format, since a losing team was given no second chance.