Champions Trophy Must be Scrapped, Says Ravi Shastri

Stating that there were too many ICC events, former India all rounder Ravi Shastri felt there was no need to conduct the Champions Trophy, which is scheduled in England from June 1.

"If you ask me, five years down the line there will be very little 50-over cricket. There are too many ICC tournaments. Which event (sport) has so many World Champions," wondered the former Indian team director here on Monday.

Shastri felt that the quadrennial ICC World Cup gets diluted by the existence of the Champions Trophy.

"I go and meet anyone on the street and am asked 'kitna World Cup hai yaar' (how many World Cups are there), 'World Champion hai kaun' (who is the World Champion), which is a fact. You have both the Champions Trophy and the World Cup. You are (thus) diluting the World Cup," Shastri said.

"World Cup, T20, Test cricket (are fine). What do you need Champions Trophy for? What are you trying to prove? Who remembers (who won them in the past)?

"If you ask me about the last 10-12 World Cups (winners), I will tell you, (but) you ask me (about) the last three Champions Trophy (winners) - I don't know. The last one (in England in 2013) I will tell, because India won," he explained.

To buttress his point, Shastri said people remember World Cup Champions and not who had won past Champions Trophy events.

who won the test champion trophy

who won the 60 overs World Cup  b4 it became 50  ??? 

To some extent I do see his point. The ICC have created these events in the hope that more people will watch the game I think but all it's done as dilute the game and the word 'champion'. I'm sure that every team or country in the world would like to be able to boast that they have a championship winning team but there should only be one in each format of the game.


Having so many different trophies to play for also makes the world rankings irrelevant and we could be in the position of having the number one team in the rankings that doesn't hold any of the trophies, and surely that needs to be looked at?

Yeah, excellent points. If there are too many trophies, no one will really know who the best team is because most teams can win trophies and earn points. At the same time, how can all the teams involved reach an agreement to give real meaning back to the word champion?