Former Sri Lanka cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara previews the eight teams ahead of the Champions Trophy opener on June 1. This column is made available exclusively via the ICC.

Bilateral One-Day International cricket has a place in world cricket and, at its best both well-scheduled and evenly-contested, can be captivating. However, there is always something extra special about a multi-nation tournament. Indeed, for me, the multilateral environment brings out the very best of the format.

It’s a very different experience playing one team for a three or five match series and participating in a major ICC event. Some players relish the environment, rising to the occasion, as do certain teams, most obviously Australia in modern times.

And then there are teams with a history of underperformance in major tournaments, the reason for which might be hard to explain given the calibre and character of its players. South Africa is, unfortunately for them, the most obvious example of a team apparently uncomfortable in such environments, although happily for them they performed extremely well in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

This ICC Champions Trophy – the first since the 2013 edition in England and Wales, a tournament where India triumphed, justifying their world champion status after their ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 success, is particularly intriguing because there are so many realistic contenders.

There was a time, not so long ago, when one or two countries dominated the format, but in the past few years we have seen several teams develop tremendously and now we have four to five teams who are very evenly matched, all with realistic ambitions of winning major tournaments.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the current England ODI team. Its progress in the past two years has been a revelation. It used to trail behind other teams in terms of its strategy and approach, but now it is one of the most progressive teams. It used to be one of the team’s that traditionally struggle in big tournaments, but under this set-up – shrewdly overseen by coaches Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace with Andrew Strauss a strong Director of Cricket – its past record is perhaps not relevant.

England is playing an aggressive and exciting brand of cricket and it has some world-class players driving that. Ben Stokes is an outstanding all-rounder, and both he and Chris Woakes will have benefited from their time in the IPL. Joe Root and Jos Butler will drive the batting.

South Africa will be thrilled to have AB de Villiers back and also Quinton de Kock, who brushed away some cobwebs with a powerful century last week