Champions Trophy 2017

[LeedsExile]

I am delighted England lost. Graves and his cohorts have prioritised winning the Champions Trophy and/or the World Cup. They are prepared to destroy the integrity of the championship to do this. So far their plan is not going too well.

[alji]

How does this destroy the integrity of the championship? Players have ALWAYS missed championship to play for England or in the past In England trial matches, more recently England A. Given that the championship loses money so has to be supported by ECB handouts from money generated by the national team, we are lucky to have as many as 18 teams with14 games a year.

[Slogger]

Clearly these two games should have been scheduled over the current few days (when 14 counties are inactive because of the 50 over knock out games) and over the weekend of 1 July when 16 counties are inactive (50 over final). Are they on TV?

[Andy]

Still want to laugh at the clown? Come on you tigers!

[nat]

How does this destroy the integrity of the championship? Players have ALWAYS missed championship to play for England or in the past In England trial matches, more recently England A. Given that the championship loses money so has to be supported by ECB handouts from money generated by the national team, we are lucky to have as many as 18 teams with14 games a year.

The CC only loses money because it spends more than it generates in direct income and as a consequence the ECB subsidises it. No ECB income = still a CC competition albeit with less money to go around.

[nat]

Still want to laugh at the clown? Come on you tigers!

I'm still laughing... at the mo. If India  don't chase 264 then I'll eat my hat.

[Andy]

Still want to laugh at the clown? Come on you tigers!

I'm still laughing... at the mo. If India  don't chase 264 then I'll eat my hat.

OK, Natty Ashdown.

[alji]

How does this destroy the integrity of the championship? Players have ALWAYS missed championship to play for England or in the past In England trial matches, more recently England A. Given that the championship loses money so has to be supported by ECB handouts from money generated by the national team, we are lucky to have as many as 18 teams with14 games a year.

The CC only loses money because it spends more than it generates in direct income and as a consequence the ECB subsidises it. No ECB income = still a CC competition albeit with less money to go around.

As long as it is subsidised the ECB have total justification for taking players for the national teams, and anyway if we refused to release a player, what would the player say?

There is a 2 innings limited time competition where England don't take players, for anyone who is bothered by releasing players. Once Graves's city thing does it's damage, we'll be playing in it.

[Stringbok]

The ICC should look at the whole thing.

It was reported that at least 35 per cent of tickets have been bought by Indians. Bit odd given its in the UK. The number of tickets on sale via third party sites is high, yet the official line is that they will only let you use their website.

I tried to get tickets to some of their matches. The website will often say tickets are available while you then select one or two tickets to buy the system says that none are available, yet when you look at the ground on TV there's loads of no shows! Bizarre!

So we are now left with a money spinning India v Pakistan (unless there's a upset today). I smell a scandal

I work in an IT department where we have offshored a lot of our work to India. We have a large number of onshore Indian staff as well and they seem to be hoovering up a lot of tickets for the Indian games.  A few years ago i tried to organise a social trip to see Essex's annual T20 victory at the Oval but garnered little interest.   In my experience Indians are lovers of Indian cricket as opposed to cricket lovers

[bwildered]

Congrats to Pakistan winners of 2017 Champions Trophy, unpredicted by everyone .