ICC Champions Trophy 2004: West Indies Beat England by 2 Wickets at The Oval — Brian Lara's First and Only Major ICC Trophy

West Indies won the ICC Champions Trophy 2004 on 25 September 2004 at The Oval in London, defeating England by 2 wickets with 7 balls remaining in a tight final. England scored 217; West Indies chased it at 218/8. Ian Bradshaw was Player of the Match for his match-winning lower-order contribution. Ramnaresh Sarwan won Player of the Tournament. Brian Lara captained West Indies to their first major ICC title since the 1979 Cricket World Cup — ending a 25-year wait for a major ODI-format trophy under Clive Lloyd's successors.

Brian Lara's Only Major ICC Trophy: 25 Years After 1979

Brian Lara's captaincy of West Indies to the ICC Champions Trophy 2004 — winning the major ICC ODI trophy for the first time since Clive Lloyd's team had won the 1979 Cricket World Cup at Lord's — was the solitary ICC title of Lara's leadership career and the only significant ICC tournament that West Indies had won in the 25 years between those two landmarks. Lara, Trinidad's left-handed batter and the holder of cricket's individual Test batting records (501* and 400*), had not previously captained West Indies to an ICC tournament title. The 2004 Champions Trophy win at The Oval was his one major ICC triumph as captain — coming in the twilight years of his career (he was 35 at the time of the final) — and remains one of West Indies cricket's most celebrated ODI team results from the post-1979 era.

Ian Bradshaw: Match-Winning Player of the Match from the Lower Order

Ian Bradshaw's Player of the Match in the Champions Trophy 2004 final — contributing a match-winning performance from West Indies' lower order that closed out the chase of England's 217 — was the example of the kind of lower-order batting resilience that West Indies had shown across major chases throughout their cricket history. Bradshaw, Barbados' right-arm fast-medium bowler who contributed with both bat and ball in the 2004 Champions Trophy, was not West Indies' most decorated name — the Lara, Sarwan, and Gayle batting lineup carried that status — but his match-deciding contribution in the final gave the tournament a Player of the Match from the team's unheralded contributors rather than its stars. Ramnaresh Sarwan's Player of the Tournament reflected the run-scoring across the full competition that West Indies' middle order had delivered throughout.

Champions Trophy 2004 in Context

The ICC Champions Trophy 2004 was the fifth edition of the competition (previously the ICC Knock-Out Tournament) and was held in England and South Africa in September 2004. England hosting the Champions Trophy's latter stages, including the final at The Oval, gave the competition a European finale in conditions that favoured swing bowling — the English September overhead conditions and The Oval's traditionally helpful surface. West Indies' 2-wicket win with 7 balls remaining gave the 2004 final its tense conclusion: a finish that required nerve from Bradshaw and the tail, and which denied England the Champions Trophy on their own soil. The 2004 title remains one of West Indies' most celebrated ODI team achievements from the post-1979 era, when a series of excellent individual players (Lara, Ambrose, Walsh, Chanderpaul) nonetheless produced fewer ICC titles than their talent suggested.