The Bushfire Cricket Bash on February 8 will see Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne teams are having the mega face-off under the coaching of Sachin Tendulkar and Courtney Walsh respectively.
The bushfire relief match, as declared already, will be organized just ahead of the Big Bash final. The venue will be announced on January 31 after the Qualifier is played as the winning team will be hosting the final. Cricket Australia committed to donating all profits from the tournament decider along with fund-raiser fixture for the cause of bushfires across the country.
Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee, Shane Watson, Alex Blackwell and Michael Clarke are few big names who have confirmed their availability for the match. Steve Waugh and Mel Jones will be involved in a non-playing capacity.
Now Sachin Tendulkar and Courtney Walsh join the scene and are certain to attract a huge crowd. The Cricket Australia CEO, Kevin Roberts said, “We are absolutely honoured to be welcoming Sachin and Courtney back to Australia where they both enjoyed a lot of success as players, and we can’t wait to have them involved in what is going to be a special day.”
He further added, “Both in the ICC Hall of Fame, Sachin is the greatest run-scorer of all time in international cricket, and we all remember what Courtney could do with the ball, taking more than 500 Test wickets. We’re looking forward to our people at CA and the entire Australian cricket family coming together for the Big Appeal.”
The Bushfire Cricket Bash is one of a range of initiatives to raise funds for those impacted by the devastating bushfires around the country over the last few months. If Melbourne Stars end as the top qualifying team the finale will be staged at MCG. This means there is a potential of Cricket Australia managing to accumulate a huge from the fund-raiser. The Boxing Day tsunami charity match in January 2005 is one such example which attracted a crowd of 70,101 and raised A$14.5 million.