No longer the poor relation

The World Cup isn't all it is cracked up to be © Getty Images

As far as scheduling goes, the Champions Trophy is even more of a disaster than FIFA's bastard child, the Confederations Cup. In 2002, Sri Lanka hosted a rained-out final a mere four months before the World Cup got underway in South Africa. This time, the final at Mumbai's historic Brabourne Stadium will take place just 16 weeks before the biggest show on [cricket] turf commences in the islands of the Caribbean. Given that the competition came into being back in 1998, it beggars belief that the game's administrators haven't managed to find it a slot in the calendar that would make it something more than glorified practice for the main event.

The last edition, staged as England slipped into autumn's clutches, was characterised by dismal crowds and some hideous mismatches. Only 8700 turned up to watch England's first triumph over Australia in the new millennium, and some of the matches featuring Bangladesh and the United States were an embarrassment for everyone concerned. Thankfully, after considerable criticism from every quarter, that ill-fated format has been binned, and replaced with one that does more justice to the Champions Trophy label.

The danger now is that it could eclipse the World Cup. The tournament in the Caribbean will witness gripping contests like Australia- Netherlands and India-Bermuda, something that your average spectator, spoilt for choice with live coverage of everything from Formula One and the NBA to Premiership football, won't be subjected to in India. In addition to that, the massive audience expected - both at the grounds and on TV - will eclipse anything that the smaller, yet more atmospheric, West Indian venues can manage.

The BCCI are clearly not too enamoured of the competition, though, for the simple reason that it cuts into India's home season and the profits flow into the ICC coffers rather than its own. But staging it now will only give it further clout, mere months after an ICC extension allowed the Asian bid to trump Australia and New Zealand when the 2011 World Cup was up for grabs.

India is also the main terminus for cricket's gravy train, and there's no doubt that coming here will be far more lucrative for most players than a trip to Barbados or Trinidad. A Kingfisher commercial featuring Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan in the showers, and a catchy but rather irritating tune, was replayed ad nauseum during England's series in India, and both men would have banked sizeable cheques despite Vaughan playing no part in the series. The same goes for the likes of Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee and Brian Lara, who will join Sachin Tendulkar on hoardings nationwide as cricket dominates the public domain in the month of October.

Whether any of this contributes to the game being better run is a moot point. In his Sunday Telegraph column, Michael Atherton raised many pertinent points while criticising the resolution of the Oval fiasco, and it remains to be seen how the umpires perform here after the slap on the wrist given to Darrell Hair. When Percy Sonn was in Colombo in August, he referred to the Champions Trophy as a feast of cricket being played out in the country that houses more cricket tragics than any other. And while the feelings persists that this is a mere rehearsal for the Lord Mayor's do early next year, we can only hope that the punters who brave the heat and the madding crowds get more than the slim pickings that were on offer in previous editions.

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