India at the 1998 Champions Trophy: Results, Squad & Stats
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in India7 min read
The competition that became the Champions Trophy began as the Wills International Cup, and it lasted nine days. Nine countries, eight matches, one ground — the Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka — and a straight knockout with no second chances. India played two matches in it, on 28 and 31 October 1998, and were out of it the day before the final.
The first of those two is one of the best days Sachin Tendulkar had in an India shirt. Against Australia in the third quarter-final he made 141 from 128 balls with thirteen fours and three sixes, then came back with the ball and took 4 for 38 from 9.1 overs, removing Steve Waugh and Michael Bevan in the middle of an Australian chase that had reached a promising position. India won by 44 runs.
Three days later, against a West Indies side that had beaten Pakistan in the fourth quarter-final, India made 242 for 6 and lost by six wickets with three overs to spare. Mohammad Azharuddin's team went home; South Africa won the trophy, and the tournament they had just invented went on to be played eight more times.
A knockout in one city
The 1998 format has never been repeated. Every full member was in, so nine teams needed a play-off to get to eight: New Zealand beat Zimbabwe by five wickets on 24 October in a preliminary match, and the other seven sides came in at the quarter-final stage. From there it was four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and a final in nine days, all at the same venue.
| Stage | Match | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preliminary | New Zealand v Zimbabwe | 24 Oct | New Zealand 260/5 beat Zimbabwe 258/7 by 5 wickets |
| Quarter-final | South Africa v England | 25 Oct | South Africa 283/4 beat England 281/7 by 6 wickets |
| Quarter-final | Sri Lanka v New Zealand | 26 Oct | Sri Lanka 191/5 beat New Zealand 188 by 5 wickets |
| Quarter-final | India v Australia | 28 Oct | India 307/8 beat Australia 263 by 44 runs |
| Quarter-final | West Indies v Pakistan | 29 Oct | West Indies 289/9 beat Pakistan 259/9 by 30 runs |
| Semi-final | South Africa v Sri Lanka | 30 Oct | South Africa beat Sri Lanka by 92 runs (D/L) |
| Semi-final | West Indies v India | 31 Oct | West Indies 245/4 beat India 242/6 by 6 wickets |
| Final | South Africa v West Indies | 1 Nov | South Africa 248/6 beat West Indies 245 by 4 wickets |
A knockout of that shape rewards nothing except the day itself. India's two performances in Dhaka were about as far apart as two matches by the same side can be, and the format had no mechanism for balancing them out. The other Champions Trophy formats — pools, then knockouts — arrived from 2000 onwards and are traced on the India at the Champions Trophy page.
India's two matches
| Stage | Opponent | India | Opponent | Result | Player of the match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quarter-final | Australia | 307/8 (50 ov) | 263 (48.1 ov) | Won by 44 runs | Sachin Tendulkar (India) |
| Semi-final | West Indies | 242/6 (50 ov) | 245/4 (47 ov) | Lost by 6 wickets | Mervyn Dillon (West Indies) |
Two matches is the fewest India have played in any edition of this tournament, matched only by 2004, and 1998 is the only edition in which they lost a semi-final. Every later India exit before the last four — 2004, 2006 and 2009 — came in a pool.
28 October: Tendulkar 141 and 4 for 38
Australia arrived in Dhaka as the strongest one-day side in the world and left after one match. India batted first and made 307 for 8, at the time a substantial total in a fifty-over international, and 141 of it belonged to Sachin Tendulkar. Ajay Jadeja hit 71 from 65 balls and Rahul Dravid 48.
The bowling half is the part that is easy to forget. Tendulkar was not a specialist bowler, and 9.1 overs was close to a full allocation for him; he finished with 4 for 38, and Javagal Srinath took 2 for 36. Mark Waugh made 74 from 79 balls and Ricky Ponting 41, but Australia lost their last five wickets inside the final overs and were dismissed for 263 with eleven balls unused.
A century and four wickets in the same one-day international is rare in any era. Tendulkar had also taken 5 for 32 against Australia at Kochi that April, which is part of why 1998 is remembered as the year he was unplayable against that particular opponent with either discipline. The fixture's full ledger is on the India versus Australia ODI record page.
31 October: 242 was not enough
The semi-final was the reverse. India batted first again, and Sourav Ganguly made 83 from 116 balls, but nobody accelerated around him and 242 for 6 from fifty overs was a par score on a pitch that had already produced 307 and 289 that week. Mervyn Dillon took 3 for 38 and was named player of the match.
West Indies chased it in 47 overs for the loss of four wickets. Shivnarine Chanderpaul made 74, and while Tendulkar took 2 for 29 from his ten overs, the chase was never brought under pressure. West Indies then lost the final to South Africa by four wickets, with Jacques Kallis taking 5 for 30 and being named player of the tournament.
The numbers India took home
Tendulkar's 141 was the highest score by any India batter in the tournament, and his six wickets for 67 from 19.1 overs the best bowling return in the side — six of the fourteen Australian and West Indian wickets India took across the two matches. Ganguly's 83 and Jadeja's 71 were the next-best innings.
That is the whole statistical record of India's 1998 tournament, and it points at something the later editions confirm: in a knockout with no group stage, one player having an extraordinary day can carry a side through a round, and cannot carry it through two. India's most successful Champions Trophy campaigns — the shared title of 2002, the clean sweep of 2013 — were built on five or six players contributing across five matches rather than on one.
What 1998 set up
Azharuddin captained India in Dhaka and again at the 1999 World Cup in England, where they reached the Super Six and went no further. By the 2000 edition in Nairobi the job had passed to Ganguly, and India reached the final. That campaign is on the India at the 2000 Champions Trophy page.
The tournament itself was conceived partly to raise money for the development of the game outside the Test-playing countries, and partly to give the ICC a second global event between World Cups. Its early identity was unstable — Wills International Cup in 1998, ICC KnockOut Trophy in 2000, Champions Trophy from 2002 — and its formats changed with almost every edition. The competition's own record is on the Champions Trophy hub, and India's next appearance, the shared title in Colombo, is on the India at the 2002 Champions Trophy page.
Three things the 1998 record shows
India's participation lasted 195 overs of cricket across four innings. Two matches is the fewest India have played in any global fifty-over tournament, World Cups included.
Both of India's matches were decided by the side batting first. India's 307 was defended and their 242 was not, on the same pitch, three days apart — a reminder that a total in Dhaka in late October was worth whatever the bowling made of it rather than a fixed number.
The eventual winners were the side India would have met in the final. South Africa beat Sri Lanka in the other semi-final and then the West Indies in the final, on the ground India had just left. India have never played South Africa in a Champions Trophy final; the fuller arc of the country's fifty-over cricket in this period is on the India ODI cricket history page and the wider setting on the cricket in India hub.
Sources and method
Match results, scores and player-of-the-match awards are taken from the ICC's record of the 1998 Wills International Cup and cross-checked against the published scorecards for each of the eight matches. India's individual figures — Tendulkar's 141 from 128 balls with thirteen fours and three sixes, his 4 for 38 from 9.1 overs and 2 for 29 from ten, Jadeja's 71 from 65, Ganguly's 83 from 116, Dravid's 48, Srinath's 2 for 36, Dillon's 3 for 38 — are from those scorecards.
No complete India squad list for this tournament is published in a form that can be verified, so this page names only players who appear on the two scorecards rather than reconstructing a fifteen. Ball-by-ball records for 1998 one-day internationals are not available, so the run and wicket aggregates here are summed from the scorecards.
The 195 overs figure is the sum of the four innings the side was involved in. Descriptions of how a match turned are readings of the scorecards and of contemporary reports, not computed values. Figures checked to 21 August 2026.