The eight edition of the Champions Trophy is going to start from 1st of June, 2017 and England will be hosting the tournament for the third 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, the tournament used to take place after every two tears. Later ICC decided to make it once-in-four-years occurrence just like the World Cup. Most of the fans also refers the mega event as ‘World Cup of Champions’. 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 one-time winners. For South Africa, this is their only achievement in an ICC event.
England has previously hosted two Champions Trophies. On both occasions, they reached the finals but eventually got defeated. Champions Trophy has provided the fans with loads of top-tier action, tension, top-drawer drama, and emotion. There have been many mind-boggling performances in the ICC CT finals.
Here are those scintillating performances by the heroes of ICC Champions Trophy finals.
1. Jacques Kallis 1998
In the maiden season of ICC Champions Trophy, which was then known as ICC Knock Out Tournament then was played in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka. the final played at the Bangabandhu National Stadium between West Indies and South Africa. proteas’ skipper late Hansie Cronje, won the toss and elected to bowl first. West Indies managed to score 245 runs from 50 overs owing to a phenomenal century by Philo Wallace.
The young bowler Jacques Kallis impressed the most by the spell of 30 for 5. His wickets also included the dangerous Carl Hooper and maintained an economy rate of just 4 runs per over.
Kallis was looking good with the bat as well as he scored 37 runs from 51 balls. He smashed four boundaries and one six during his innings. South Africa chased down the target with 3 overs to spare. Kallis then went on to become the legend for South Africa. The CT 1998 final was the trailer of Kallis’ illustrous career.
