On Tuesday, veteran cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was named as the coach for Ricky Ponting XI for charity matches in league – Bushfire Cricket Bash – to raise relief funds for Wildfires in Australia. The match will be played against Shane Warne XI which will be coached by Courtney Walsh before the Finale of the KFC Big Bash League on 8th February 2020.
As Sachin agreed for the position of coach for Ricky Ponting XI, Ponting, on Twitter, congratulated and showed gratitude towards Tendulkar for “giving up his time to come out for the cause”. He, also said (in pun) “Picked the right team to coach too!”.
With this, Ponting was (all pun intended) taking a dig at Shane Warne. The charity match between Ricky Ponting XI and Shane Warne XI for the wildfire of Australia will be played on the 8th February 2020.
Today, Sachin Tendulkar replied to Ponting’s tweet by saying, “Chose the right team and more importantly the right cause my friend. Hope that the Bushfire Cricket Bash will offer some relief to the people and wildlife in Australia.”
Chose the right team and more importantly the right cause my friend.
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) January 22, 2020
Hope that the Bushfire Cricket Bash will offer some relief to the people and wildlife in Australia. https://t.co/dx4EnHPNvN
This charity match will be played as the curtain raiser for the Finale of Big Bash League, and will aim at raising funds for relief works underway to tackle the wildfire of Australia. As Sachin Tendulkar agreed to come on-board as a coach for Ricky Ponting XI, Caribbean Fast Bowler legend Courtney Walsh has agreed to coach the Shane Warne XI for the cause.
Apart from the obvious Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne, there will be many big names in Australian Cricket who will be coming back on field to play cricket, players like Brett Lee, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke, and Adam Gilchrist. Steve Waugh and Justin Langer (Australian Coach) will also have off-field roles to play in the charity match.
Kevin Roberts, CEO, Cricket Australia 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”.
Recently, The “Baggy Green” cap that Shane Warne received as an award on Test Players on Debut was sold for over Australian Dollars 1 million (close to Rs. 5 crore), with all the money going into Australia’s Bushfire Relief funds.
