ICC Champions Trophy : Heroes of the Finals

The eight edition of the Champions Trophy will commence from 1st of June, 2017 as England hosts the tournament for the third time. The Oval at London is set the be the host of the Champions Trophy final for the second time. The tournament was started in the year 1998 and was known as ICC Knock Out Tournament or Wills International Cup back then.

At that time, it used to be a once-in-two-years event. Later ICC decided to make it once-in-four-years occurrence just like the World Cup. This elite tournament is also referred to as the ‘Mini World Cup’ by many. Australia and India are the only teams to have won it two times (India shared the 2002 title with Sri Lanka). South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka (shared with India) and West Indies are the other winners. For South Africa, this is their only triumph in an ICC event.

England has previously hosted two Champions Trophies. On both occasions, they were defeated in the finals. Champions Trophy has provided the fans with loads of top-tier action, anxiety, top-drawer drama and excitement. There have been many scintillating performances in the ICC CT finals.

Let us have a look at the heroes of ICC Champions Trophy finals

(ICC Champions Trophy 2002 has not been taken into account since the final match was washed out on both the occasions)

#1 Jacques Kallis – South Africa v West Indies (1998)

The first edition of ICC Champions Trophy (known as ICC Knock Out Tournament then) was played in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka. Bangabandhu National Stadium hosted the finals where the mighty West Indies were up against South Africa. South Africa, led by late Hansie Cronje, won the toss and elected to field. West Indies managed to score 245 runs from 50 overs owing to a beautifully sculptured ton from Philo Wallace.

The bowler who impressed the most for South Africa was the 23-year old Jacques Kallis. Conceding just 30 runs, he took 5 wickets which included the wicket of the dangerous Carl Hooper and maintained an economy rate of just 4 runs per over.

Kallis was steady with the bat as well as the young-gun scored 37 runs from 51 balls. His innings comprised of four boundaries and one six. Owing to the superb efforts of the present Kolkata Knight Riders’ coach in IPL, South Africa chased down the target with 3 overs to spare. The 23-year old young player then went on to become the legend for South Africa. The CT 1998 final was the predicament of what was to come in later years from Kallis.