The Tsunami Relief Fund game at Lord’s between the MCC and the International XI was a well-attended game though many areas of the main pavilion were unoccupied.
It may well have been because the MCC members thought that they might have to shell out some money to the volunteers who were going around with envelopes.
For the others, it was good to see the manner in which the players responded to the cause and played the game with seriousness.
The game finished well before the 100 overs were completed, because the skipper Fleming emphasized that he did not want the spectators to feel short changed by the fare on offer if it wasn’t played hard or seriously.
Shoaib Akhtar bowled really quick as if he wanted to show the Pakistani selectors that he was fully fit and a couple of bouncers went zinging past the helmets of the batsmen. Sourav Ganguly showed his magnanimity by accepting a last-minute invitation from MCC to play in the game after Ramnaresh Sarwan had some travel problems and so could not make it to London.
Inspite of the fact that he is close to 10,000 runs in one-day cricket and will be the third player to do so, others were picked and invited to be part of this game. Obviously, it had nothing to do with his form or ability, but only because he has a difficult image in the UK that he wasn’t among the first chosen.
He would have been well justified in telling them to go swim in the Thames, but because it was a good cause and also because it afforded him the chance to show that he could score runs that he would have accepted the late invitation.
It was a win-win situation for him, for by accepting the invite he showed that he held no bitterness and even if he failed, people would have said that he wasn’t in form anyway, but if he had scored, it would only have helped him.
It was no surprise that none of the Indian batsmen scored, for invariably in such games they are unable to bring the same kind of intensity and focus that they have in Tests and one-day internationals when playing for India.
The two spinners did well and showed that they are a handful even in conditions that don’t always suit them. While there were some entertaining innings, there’s no doubt that the sweetest one was from the blade of Brian Charles Lara. He got 42 off only 27 balls faced, and there were such exquisite shots that there was a big groan when he mistimed a lofted shot and edged it to short third-man.
All of Lord’s wanted him to stay on, for then only would the game be a close one. The South African captain Graeme Smith was keen on a century, but was foxed by a well flighted one from Kumble, and his disappointment at his dismissal was obvious.
The sad part about the game was the hoax played by the internet bidder who bid close to £50,000 to play an over from Shane Warne in the interval between innings after getting some batting tips from Sachin Tendulkar. By the time it was discovered that the bidder was a hoax, there was no time to contact the next highest bidder who was from Australia and so could never have made it to Lord’s.
Maybe since Warne is from Australia and Tendulkar is likely to be there in Oct., the over could have been played then and the charity not lose on the donation.
In any case, even the organizations looking after the devastated areas are now saying that they don’t need any more funds but still in the name of Tsunami, these games are going on. Its a clever way of getting permissions from ICC to play games, as otherwise the ICC is not keen on these type of matches and frowns on them. There’s another one at the Oval in a few days time, where the Best of Asia without any players from Pakistan and Bangladesh mind you, take on an International eleven in a Twenty20 game.
There were games in the United States, also which the ICC is very wary about giving permission to, but those are now cancelled as the Pakistani players were unable to get visas in time.
It would be interesting to find out how much money these games have generated and given to the relief, for apart from the one in Australia, there’s been no public announcement of how much the cause has benefited.
Having given permission to hold these games, the ICC will now be hard-pressed to say no to other games arranged with the ostensible reason of raising funds for some charity. The disappointing thing is that Sri Lanka and India, the two cricketing countries actually damaged by the Tsunami, have not been able to organize a game in their own countries. While players from these countries have naturally made all efforts to play and raise funds wherever they have been invited, the same cannot be said about players from other countries, who under the excuse of too tight international schedules, have declined to play.
However, they have found time from their busy schedules to play in Australia and in England, but not in India, and so the planned game had to be eventually cancelled. Hopefully we have now seen the last of the Tsunami relief games and more importantly, the last of the devastating Tsunami.
