Record-Breaking Charity Fundraising Cricketers Set The Bar High
Cricketing charity fundraisers are turning mountains into mole hills with their ambitious globe-trotting plans.
Richard Kirtley, cousin of former England bowler James Kirtley, successfully organised and played in the highest cricket fixture ever played, when he led an expedition to the Gorak Shep plateau 5,165m up Everest to play a Twenty20 match.
Kirtley now has his eyes set on another record: the world’s lowest cricket match.
Kirtley said: “There’s a dried-out lake bed in Somalia 300 metres below sea level, so we’re thinking we might go down there.”
Fellow organiser and Everest Test umpire Alan Curr said: “Actually I think the lowest spot is near the Dead Sea, so for accuracy’s sake, we’d rather go there!”
The Everest Test, www.theeveresttest.com, represented three years’ dreaming and planning, after Kirtley thought the plateau ideal for a cricket match while trekking there in 2006.
April 21st saw Kirtley realise his ambitions, when Team Hillary beat Team Tenzing (after the first men to set foot on Everest’s summit in 1953) in a game where boundary hitting was even more important than your typical Twenty20 game, with oxygen levels just 66% of those found at sea level.
Kirtley said: “We were running quick singles and it was like, holy shit!”
The match raised over £250, 000 for the Lord’s Taverners and the Himalayan Trust UK, so the trek has a lasting legacy.
The Lord’s Taverners is one of the UK’s leading youth sports and disability charities, while Himalayan Trust UK works to protect and preserve the environment and national parks in Nepal and to help alleviate poverty and sickness in the region.
Umpire Curr said: “Since we have got back, everyone has got back to normal life.
“But the lowest cricket match is one of many ideas we have; it is the logical follow-up to Everest.”
If half the effort goes into the lowest game, I’m sure these amateur record breakers will prove the sky’s the limit for charity fundraising.
The Oval, home of Surrey CCC, is hosting an exhibition of the Everest Test Wednesday July 1st in their Ashes Suite from 7-9pm. Tickets are £10 on the door.
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