Warne and Tendulkar return to promote Cricket

In the latest bid to promote cricket in new markets, cricketing legends Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar will captain opposing sides, “Sachin’s Blasters” and “Warne’s Warriors”, in a three-match T20 series titled “Cricket All-Stars Series 2015” next month. The matches will be played in New York, Houston and Los Angeles and the event will feature more than two dozen retired internationals and legends such as Brian Lara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Wasim Akram and Sourav Ganguly.

Fans will get a great chance to view their favourite stars back in action 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 are slated to be played in daytime while the final game at Dodger Stadium is scheduled to be played under lights at the 56,000 capacity facility.

Speaking to Wall Street Journal, Warne said,”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 had earlier said in June that Chicago’s Wrigley Field would also be a venue during the tour, but those plans were scrapped while an earlier proposal to play at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx had also been ditched in favour of Citi Field located in the New York City borough of Queens. All three facilities are baseball stadiums – occupied by the NY Mets, Houston Astros and LA Dodgers respectively– and drop-in pitches will be used.

This is an excellent attempt to promote cricket and cricket viewership in the United States of America since a pair of Twenty20 matches were played between West Indies and New Zealand in June 2012 at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida.

The complete list of players taking part in this series are as follows –

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