Gary Naylor
Pakistan (Grade D)
What can one say? The cricket-mad public of Pakistan waited so long for a return to hosting an ICC tournament, then see the main attraction quit for Dubai and then their own team bundled out after a couple of heavy defeats and a heavy downpour. With just eight teams in the Champions Trophy, there are no easy games, no chance to recover from a slow start, but New Zealand first up, followed by India (away) was a very tough agenda – too tough as it turned out.
Top Man
Khushdil Shah made a couple of scores and went at under a run a ball with his slow left arm but, like many of his compatriots, he made you nostalgic for the great players of the past (or even Noman Ali and Sajid Khan).
Flop Man
Unfair it may be, but all Pakistan looks to Babar Azam as their standard bearer, the man who instils belief, leads from the front, changes the game. In the first match, in pursuit of 321, after the first powerplay the opener was on 11, Pakistan with just 22-2 on the tins. Such passivity was inexcusable in so experienced a player and, according to Cricinfo’s probability graph, his team’s best chance of chasing down the target came before a ball was bowled to them.
Bangladesh (Grade D)
The Tigers ran into the wily old pro, Mohammed Shami, and were out of the India game on 35-5 before the first powerplay was completed. Batting first again, this time in Rawalpindi against the Kiwis, a good platform of 97-2 became a shaky 118-5 in the space of 34 balls, a target of 236 giving little for the bowlers to work with, big cats reduced to pussy cats.
Top Man
Towhid Hridoy fought off a classy Indian attack and waves of cramp to make a fine century, last man out in the final over. At 24, he is surely a player around whom Bangladesh can build for the future with so many of their stars growing old together.
Flop Man
One of those stalwarts is Mushfiqur Rahim, the wicketkeeper-batter now 37 years old. If this is the last we see of him in a tournament (he’s now retired from ODIs), a first ball duck and a five ball two is a sad way to bow out after nearly 20 years proudly representing his country.
England (Grade D)
On the one hand, the campaign comprised two narrow defeats having made 300+ and a dead rubber; on the other, three lost matches, one lost captain and a lost sense of purpose in this format. Not for the first time in the last ten years, England looked to be playing an old-fashioned game in a rapidly changing world – batters went for the big shots regardless, bowlers had pace but not much else and the captain could not raise his team under pressure.
Top Man
Joe Root came to the crease with a plan to make a century at a run-a-ball by managing risk through strike rotation and missing the field when the four balls arrived. That’s pretty much the job description of numbers three, four and five in any ODI XI, yet it seemed absent from the rest of his team.
Flop Man
Phil Salt was out three times before the powerplay had reached its halfway point, each time forcing it / slogging it (delete to taste). It’s his brief, so he’s not solely culpable, but what works at least half the time in T20 matches, can crash and burn to gruesome effect in the 50 overs format, with its aching space of 47 or so overs left to play with only nine wickets in hand.
Afghanistan (Grade C+)
Losing half your batters before the halfway mark of the innings proved predictably fatal in chasing down South Africa’s total of 300+, but Hashmatullah Shahidi rallied his men to set England 326 in the (knockout) second match. Led by Azmatullah Omarzai’s fivefer, they kept taking wickets to consign England to an early plane home. It was not their fault that rain denied them a deserved chance to progress to the semi-finals.
Top Man
When his captain needed it, Ibrahim Zadran produced a dazzling, smart, crucial innings of 177, peppered with audacious strokes and founded on total self-belief. At 23, the opener averages over 50 in his 36 ODIs and has talent to burn.
Flop Man
Everyone looks to Rashid Khan in the field, his white ball experience and record speaking for itself, but he just couldn’t get going in either match. He took just the one wicket and, uncharacteristically, went for more than a run–a-ball and proved a weak link in the field. He’ll be back though.
Australia (Grade B)
Shorn of some greats, a curious hotchpotch of a team that qualified for the semi-final off the back of their two wicketkeepers’ partnership of 146 for the fifth wicket between the 23rd and 42nd overs (Josh Inglis 120 and Alex Carey 69) against a lacklustre England.
Just as in that group match when one always felt that Australia had enough, in the semi-final against India, the reverse was true. A very inexperienced attack kept going but, trying to defend a target of 265, once Virat Kohli settled into an anchor role a collapse was their only hope – and it didn’t quite come.
Top Man
Josh Inglis’s century was the main reason his team reached the semi-finals and he was tidy in his keeping. He does continue a worrying trend of the Aussies’ better new players being already into their 30s.
Flop Man
Glenn Maxwell never got going with the bat, curiously hidden down at number seven, and his bowling lacked a little in its characteristic meanness. At 36, the gamechanger didn’t change a game and there must be a question as to whether we’ll see him again in international cricket after 265 white ball matches that have always been about high highs and low lows – and tremendous entertainment.
South Africa (Grade B-)
We know the script by now. The Proteas looked tremendous in steamrolling Afghanistan and England, then wilted under pressure as a better balanced, more confident New Zealand kept finding answers with the bat and then the ball. It must break fans’ hearts because only India can match them man-for-man for talent, but there’s something indefinable that the Saffas lack.
Top Man
Wiaan Mulder took six wickets at an economy rate under five in those tricky middle overs as very much the fifth bowler – job done. He barely got a chance to bat and one wonders whether he might have been better deployed as a free-hitting number three where his captain chewed up too many deliveries.
Flop Man
There’s no getting away from the fact that his team looked better balanced without Temba Bavuma, its captain, at the top of the order. Almost 35 now and a significant figure in his country’s long road back from the apartheid years, whether he gets into his country’s best side is questionable now, never mind by the next World Cup rolls round.
New Zealand (Grade B+)
The Kiwis did what Kiwi cricket teams have done for some time now – play to a well-thought out plan, under effective leadership on and off the field, squeezing the very best out of the resources available, The problem is that sustaining such efficiency across a tournament can sap mental energy and, when key catches went down in the final, the weight of the previous 19 days’ efforts caught up with them.
Top Man
No longer a potential star, but a genuine world class player, Rachin Ravindra was top run scorer and player of the series, but it was Glenn Phillips who was the heartbeat of the run to the final. Decent contributions with the bat in four matches and a willingness to bowl thereby offering respite to the full-timers, his fielding set new standards, taking searing drives and cuts one-handed from positions closer to the pitch than orthodoxy suggests (so cutting down angles). His work provided glorious material for social media showreels.
Flop Man
It was a stiff ask for Kyle Jamieson to slot straight back into international one day cricket in the cauldron of an ICC tournament nearly eighteen months on from his last match for his country and, at times, it showed. Lacking the lovely rhythm that characterised his work when he burst into the side, he was down on pace and threat, and then dropped a sitter in the final (that, in the end, would not have made a difference).
India (Grade A)
Job done, if a little bloodlessly for neutrals. Based in Dubai, their strategy could be summarised as picking better players than their opponents, but they also needed them to perform in the relatively few moments in which they came under pressure. That said, such a varied, experienced and skilful attack could have won matches with five batters supporting them – they usually had eight.
Top Man
Varun Chakravarthy played only three of five matches, but he bowled his full allocation in each, his ability to get set batters out while also stifling the run rate, absolute gold to a fielding captain. In his mid-30s and with only one ODI appearance prior to the tournament, the late-bloomer had worked on his variations and reaped the rewards of an old dog’s willingness to learn new tricks.
Flop Man
Can you really be a flop if you’re Player of the Match and end the day holding up the Champions Trophy? Of course not, but, until then in Dubai, Rohit Sharma had endured a frustrating series, getting in and getting out, launching sixes and then missing or mistiming the ball. He says he isn’t planning to retire but, though it’s not India’s way, he might not be given the choice.