I received many comments arguing that South Africans, or anyone really—but specifically South Africans—mentioning India’s advantage in the recently concluded Champions Trophy were just expressing sour grapes. Often, these comments included a picture of the 2009 Champions Trophy, hosted by South Africa, where all three of South Africa’s group-stage matches were played in Pretoria, saving the Proteas from needing to travel. The argument posed was that if this advantage was so significant, why didn’t the Proteas progress from their group?
Firstly, it must be said—you still have to win the competition, so congratulations to India on that front. They are currently in the middle of an impressive run in white-ball cricket tournaments, comparable to any team historically. By my count, they’ve won 15 out of 16 ICC 50-over matches and 24 out of 25 matches overall. The complaint here isn’t that the ICC is helping a bad team; India is clearly a dominant side.
However, comparing the fixture situation of the 2025 Champions Trophy with the 2009 tournament shows one of two things:
1 – You’re easily offended and simply chose the closest tournament as a comparison, or
2 – You’re easily offended and either don’t understand geography or don’t care about it.
Firstly, yes, South Africa did play all their group-stage matches at one stadium—SuperSport Park, Centurion. But considering the tournament was held in just two stadiums, there was about a 25% chance of this happening randomly anyway. This is supported by the fact that another team, the West Indies, also played all their group matches in one stadium, the Wanderers.
Secondly, yes, other teams had to travel—but here geography matters. The distance between Wanderers Stadium and Centurion is only 37 kilometers; it’s about a half-hour drive on a good day! The most any team traveled during the 2009 Champions Trophy was England, who faced the toughest schedule, playing two games in each stadium—covering a total of just 111 kilometers. By comparison, every team except India traveled at least 1,000 kilometers in the recent Champions Trophy, and every semi-finalist traveled at least 2,509 kilometers. As mentioned, England had to go from Johannesburg to Centurion, back to Johannesburg, and again to Centurion—totaling 111 kilometers. New Zealand, the beaten finalists in the recent tournament, had to travel repeatedly between Pakistan and Dubai, which is considerably further.
Thirdly, the 2009 Champions Trophy had its knockout stages set out ahead of time. One semi-final was scheduled at the Wanderers and the other at Centurion, with the final set in Centurion—this was fixed regardless of who qualified. By contrast, India knew their route to the 2025 final would be through Dubai, while other teams were subject to the fixture list, allowing India to tailor their squad specifically for one set of conditions, unlike everyone else who had to prepare a more generalized team.
Finally, although perhaps less important and likely unknown to newer fans (post-2010), until 2011 no team had ever won an ICC final at home. The closest was Sri Lanka, who won the 2002 Champions Trophy final that was abandoned due to weather, and again in 1996 when they co-hosted the World Cup but played the final in India. Back then, home advantage was not considered as significant in ICC tournaments.
India is a great team currently enjoying an all-time great run, but pretending the situation is comparable to the 2009 Champions Trophy is intentionally dishonest.
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