Tendulkar and Warne league matches: Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne will be captaining opposition teams in a 3 T20 matches in the United States of America in the month of November. The league was previously known as Masters League now has been renamed as the “Cricket All-Stars series 2015” and it will have more than 20 top retired international cricketers from many other Test playing nations.
Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne have floated a league consisting of former players to be played in USA.
“To make history in America playing these cricket games, myself and Sachin walking out and tossing the coin in New York at Citi Field will be a pretty epic moment,” Warne told the Wall Street Journal.
All the grounds are baseball grounds which are owned by NY Mets, Houston Astros and LA Dodgers and there will be the use of drop-in pitches in order to play the cricket in the stadiums.
All the matches will be played on November 7 at New York’s Citi Field, November 11 at Houston’s Minute Maid Park and November 14 at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium. The first two games of the league will be played in the day while the last game of the league will be played at Dodger Stadium. The Dodger Stadium game is scheduled to be played in flood lights at the stadium which has a capacity for 56,000 spectators.
The teams are named Sachin’s Blasters and Warne’s Warriors and apart from these two legends, 26 other former international stars have confirmed their participation in the event. Players like Brian Lara, Wasim Akram, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman have also thrown their names in the hat for the masters league.
Other players include former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden and Brad Haddin. Former West Indies greats like Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene all have confirmed participation.
List of participating players
India - Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Ajit Agarkar
Australia - Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath, Brad Haddin
South Africa - Jacques Kallis, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Jonty Rhodes, Allan Donald
England - Graeme Swann, Michael Vaughan
West Indies - Brian Lara, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose
Sri Lanka- Kumar Sangakkara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Mahela Jayawardene
Pakistan- Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq, Moin Khan
Nine other players who have tentatively shown interest to take part are Anil Kumble, Andy Flower, Sanath Jayasuriya, Shahid Afridi, Waqar Younis, Andrew Flintoff, Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee and Michael Hussey. But seeing that Waqar Younis is coaching Pakistan national cricket team in a series against England in UAE and Mahela Jayawardene being a part of England coaching staff, it seems that their participation hangs in the balance and depends on permissions by their respective employers.
Warne and Tendulkar’s league got clearance from ICC and the USACA last month since there are no currently active players playing in the league and ICC also saw it as a golden chance to expand the reach of the game in the Northern Americas though Canada has been part of the international cricket since long back.
This is the first big attempt to gain revenue from cricket in the USA were baseball and football are the major pastimes of people. The last time any international cricket was played in the USA was in 2012 June when West Indies and New Zealand played 2 T20I matches in the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida. This is the only cricket specific ground recognized by the ICC in the USA and it has a capacity of 15,000 people.
