A tournament invented to pay for itself
The ICC wanted money for cricket's developing nations and it wanted a short event that would not devalue the World Cup. The answer was a straight knockout squeezed into nine days: no groups, no dead rubbers, lose once and fly home. It was awarded to Bangladesh, who were not a Test nation and did not take part, on the reasoning that a global tournament there would do more for the game than another one in a country that already had plenty. Severe floods that summer nearly cost Dhaka the event. It went ahead anyway, with the Bangladesh board pledging a tenth of the gate to flood relief.
Nine Test countries meant an awkward draw. The seedings were meant to follow the 1996 World Cup finishing order, but the bracket that appeared had New Zealand playing a preliminary match against Zimbabwe to reach the last eight, which few thought was a coincidence given which teams had been protected. New Zealand won it by five wickets, Stephen Fleming making 96, and then lost to Sri Lanka four days later.
Tendulkar's afternoon, Kallis's tournament
Every match was played at the Bangabandhu National Stadium, and the quarter-finals set a tone the format encouraged: no second chances, so no caution. South Africa chased 282 against England with three overs to spare. West Indies posted 289 and held Pakistan off by 30. The one everybody remembers came on 28 October, when Sachin Tendulkar made 141 from 128 balls against Australia and then took 4 for 38 with his medium pace and off-breaks. Australia were beaten by 44 runs and out of a global tournament after one game.
Jacques Kallis was 22 and had not yet become the all-rounder people compared to anyone. In the semi-final against Sri Lanka, on a day chopped about by rain, he made 113 not out in a 39-over innings; Sri Lanka, chasing a revised 224 from 34, were bowled out for 132. In the final he took 5 for 30 in 7.3 overs to help dismiss West Indies for 245, then made 37 in the chase. Philo Wallace's 103 had briefly threatened to be the innings of the match. Hansie Cronje finished it off with 61 not out, and South Africa got home with three overs left.
What it left behind
The knockout format was thrilling and commercially thin, and it did not last long: by 2002 the ICC had moved to pools, guaranteeing every side at least two matches and every broadcaster a fuller schedule. What survived was the concept, a compact ODI tournament between the strongest teams, played in the gaps between World Cups.
For South Africa the win meant more than anyone realised at the time. They had lost a World Cup quarter-final in 1996 and would lose a semi-final in 1999 in the manner that defined them for a generation. This trophy, won in Dhaka in front of a crowd with no stake in the result, remained their only senior ICC title until they took the World Test Championship in 2025.