It appears Shahid Afridi lives by the motto “Have cricket kit and passport, will travel.” Keep cashing those cheques, Shahid!
Seriously though, who doesn’t love seeing retired sports stars rolling out for a hit and giggle; a collection of last generation’s finest cricketers put on a show that would make the Disney corporation raise an eyebrow.
The Swiss Alps ski resort town of St Moritz featured as an unlikely home for cricket on Thursday, with the Virender Sehwag-led Diamonds team taking on Shahid Afridi’s Royals in a T20 on ice.
Cricket’s former stars turned out for two days of skiing the Alps and socialising – ahh I mean two ICC-sanctioned T20s – and it proved quite the spectacle.
Cricket whites, T20 strips and commentating microphones cast aside in favour of snow jackets and beanies underneath cricket helmets. Gone are the carefully trimmed outfields and meticulously prepared pitches of Lord’s or the MCG, in their place is an inch of snow and some sort of ad-hoc green synthetic carpet sorry excuse for a pitch.
However, the pitch played fairly true and you needn’t worry about the pace of the outfield when you clear the boundary for maximums.
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While both teams were littered with former superstars of cricket, the Palace Diamonds featured Mike Hussey, Andrew Symonds, Mohammed Kaif, and Zaheer Khan. The Royals were not short of star power either, featuring South African pair Graham Smith and all-rounder Jaques Kallis, Grant Elliot, Abdul Razzaq, Daniel Vettori and speedster Shoaib Akhtar – no word whether he came off the long run up.
The first match saw Sewag hit out for the Diamonds, anchoring the innings at the top with a powerful 62 from 31 balls, striking at 200.00, Symonds chipping in with 40 from 30 balls.
The Diamonds posted 164 from their 20 overs, with no one really knowing if that was a good score, the Royals chased down the total in 15.2 overs, Owas Shah smashing an unbeated 74 off 34 to close out proceedings.
The second instalment saw the Diamonds again post a competitive total, setting 206 for victory on the back of another powerful display from Sehwag and Symonds, with Mohammed Kaif polishing off the innings with 57 off 30 balls.
However, the Royals cruised past the total in the 17th over, Kallis blasting 90 off 43.
Abdul Razzaq took seven wickets across the two matches – perhaps a permanent move to Switzerland could have prolonged his career?
The next time you hear someone complain about the lifeless MCG pitch or the road at the old WACA, it could always be worse.
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