ICC Champions Trophy

Season:

2025

The ICC Men's Champions Trophy, formerly called the ICC Knockout Trophy, is a quadrennial cricket tournament organised by the International Cricket Council. It is played in ODI format. Inaugurated in 1998, The ICC conceived the idea of the Champions Trophy – a short cricket tournament to raise funds for the development of the game in non-test playing countries. It can be compared to FIFA Confederations Cup in football. It remains as one of the ICC events that has the same format as that of another big cricketing event, in this case One Day International like the Cricket World Cup. The first Champions Trophy was organised in Bangladesh in June 1998, with the Cricket World Cup having had existed for 23 years with six completed editions. The first two Champions Trophies were held in ICC Associate member nations – Bangladesh and Kenya, to increase the popularity of the sport in those countries and then use the funds collected for the development of their cricket. From the 2002 tournament onwards, hosting has been shared between countries under an unofficial rotation system, with six ICC members having hosted at least one match in the tournament. The current format involves a qualification phase, which takes place in the preceding edition of the Cricket World Cup, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase. The top eight ranked teams in the World Cup (including the hosts of the Champions Trophy) secure a berth for the tournament. A total of thirteen teams have competed in the 8 editions of the tournament, with eight teams competing in the 2017 tournament. Australia and India are the two most successful teams winning the tournament twice, while South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Pakistan have won it once each. Seven national teams have played in every edition of the tournament yet. Pakistan are the current champions after winning the 2017 tournament, held in England and Wales.