MELBOURNE, January 10 (Online): International Cricket Council (ICC) World XI side and Asia XI are schedule to meet in a one-day tsunami benefit match in Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), Melbourne on Monday (today).
Over 150,000 people across South and Southeast Asia were killed when giant waves hit them on Dec 26.
The world sporting fraternity is fast coming to the aid of the affected and displaced people in 12 countries, including India and Sri Lanka, the two Test-playing nations.
The proceeds from the match in Melbourne will be donated to a global relief and development organisation, World Vision, which is dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide.
World Vision has staff across the Asian region and is providing food and family survival kits to the countries devastated by the earthquake and tsunami.
The ICC board is of the view that due to the extraordinary circumstances that has brought about these two matches an exception to the existing rules should be made.
This decision applies only to these two matches one in Melbourne and second not decided yet and does not change the status of other one-day matches from the past or in the future."
The ICC also allocated player numbers for the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal match.
"The ICC World XI playing apparel will be predominantly navy blue with white stripes, whilst the Asian XI, which is sponsored by the ACC, will be outfitted in green apparel with gold trim," said the statement.
Both teams will also be supplied with playing caps and helmets in team colors branded with the event logo.
Meanwhile, the Australian cricket board announced Friday that the match, to be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), would be telecast live. The match is being beamed to more than 100 countries.
"The decision was made with Cricket Victoria and the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) after the match had been declared a 'sell-out', with all public reserve tickets being sold," announced Cricket Australia (CA).
"To sell approximately 56,000 tickets in just three days is an amazing effort, and we thank the people of Melbourne for their outstanding support," said CA CEO James Sutherland.
"We're certainly hoping to raise several million dollars for the Tsunami Appeal, and also encourage all MCC members to come to what promises to be a match to remember," he said.
In another fine gesture, the umpires and the match referee for the match have waived their match fee to help the victims of the killer waves that struck on Dec 26 killing 150,000 people in South and Southeast Asia.
ICC World XI (shirt Nos. as prefix): 1-Ricky Ponting (captain, Australia), 2-Stephen Fleming (vice-captain/New Zealand), 3-Dwayne Bravo (West Indies), 4-Chris Cairns (New Zealand), 5-Chris Gayle (West Indies), 6-Adam Gilchrist (Australia), 7-Darren Gough (England), 8-Matthew Hayden (Australia), 9-Brian Lara (West Indies), 10-Glenn McGrath (Australia), 11-Daniel Vettori (New Zealand), 12-Shane Warne (Australia).
Coach: Steve Waugh
ACC Asia XI (shirt Nos. as prefix): 1-Sourav Ganguly (India/captain), 2-Marvan Atapattu (Sri Lanka), 3-Rahul Dravid (India), 4-Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka), 5-Alok Kapali (Bangladesh), 6-Zaheer Khan (India), 7-Anil Kumble (India), 8-Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka), 9-Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka), 10-Virender Sehwag (India), 11-Sachin Tendulkar (India), 12-Chaminda Vaas (Sri Lanka), 13-Yousuf Youhana (Pakistan) and 14-Abdul Razzaq (Pakistan).
Coach: Bob Woolmer
Umpires: Rudi Koertzen (South Africa) and Billy Bowden (New Zealand)
TV umpire: Bob Parry
Match referee: Chris Broad (England)
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