Today was the first real day of what is probably the third most important competition in this year’s cricketing calendar
Which you rate as the most important probably depends on who you support.
If you support Australia or England then the Ashes happening this December/January is the competition to watch – that’s every two years but is the longest running rivalry in the game.
For everyone else, the most important is the competition that follows that which is the ICC Cricket World Cup, which happens every four years.

So, the Champions trophy (every 2 years) is sort of a mini worldcup. The preliminary qualifying rounds (otherwise known as how to get rid of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe from the main competition) finished last week with the West Indies and Sri Lanka comprehensively going through.
Today was the opening match between the hosts, India and England. It appears that the trend for the pitches seems to be those with a bit in it for the bowlers with uneven bounce at the start. This was not to england’s liking as they were skittled out for 125.
It all looked over and certainly wasn’t enough, but India struggled a little to knock off the runs, losing 6 wickets in their chase. The master himself, Sachin Tendulker, reckoned that 175 would’ve made for a competitive target.
This is very unusual for the subcontinent, which generally produces one day pitches where 280+ is possible
There’s practically a match every day for the next 2 weeks, so will be dipping into cricinfo every day to follow the latest