Indian Oil Cup 2005

The Indian Oil Cup 2005 was a three-team cricket tournament which took place in Sri Lanka in July and August 2005, between the hosts Sri Lanka, India and West Indies. Sri Lanka were second in the ICC ODI Championship before this tournament, and fulfilled their position as favourites with an 18-run victory over India in the final. Their last ODI tournament defeat at home was a 2-3 series loss to Australia, in February 2004. India, meanwhile, continued on their disappointing run, as that side has now only won one tournament since March 2004 - a 2-1 defeat of Bangladesh, which could be seen as a disappointment as well, as the Bangladeshis had not won an ODI against a full member of the ICC, excepting Zimbabwe, since 1999. They're seventh in the ODI tables, one place ahead of the West Indies, who were in the middle of a contract dispute - meaning that they were not fielding their strongest side. However, there were a number of positive performances - the bowlers more often than not impressed, and Dinesh Ramdin showed himself as a wicketkeeper for the future. However, a 7-run loss in the final match against India saw them knocked out of the final. Sri Lanka only lost one match in the tournament, a pointless fixture from their point of view against West Indies.

Tournament structure

The sides met each other in a double round robin, meaning that each side played four matches, for a total of six matches being played. A win was worth five points, and a loss zero - however, if the winning team had a run rate (i.e. runs hit per over) higher than 1.25 times that of the opponent, a bonus point was awarded to the winning side, if not it went to the losing side. In the event of a tie or a no-result, each side was awarded three points. The top two teams on points went through to the one-match final.

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