Indian cricketers Suresh Raina and Yusuf Pathan are set to play for a World XI side against Sri Lanka XI to raise funds for disaster affected children. It will be a T20 match and another Indian player Robin Uthappa has also confirmed his participation for the charity game.
Sri Lanka Cricket’s Technical Committee had earlier postponed the event due to the unavailability of the two greats of the country – Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. Apart from Raina, Yusuf and Uthappa, other members of the World XI include some big names from around the world.
Shahid Afridi, JP Duminy, Farhan Behardien, Tymal Mills, Graeme Cremer, Misbah-ul-Haq, Abdur Razzaq and Luke Ronchi will also feature in the World XI team. The Sri Lankan Board has not announced the match date but it is expected to be organized soon. The match will be raising funds for victims of the recent floods and also those suffering from chronic kidney diseases
“A couple of key players like Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara are also not available on this date, so we felt that we could afford to wait a while and play this game at a more conducive time,” the CEO of Sri Lankan Cricket, Ashley de Silva said as per quotes from Sportskeeda.
“We are still in the process of procuring names from the other countries from which the final 13 will be picked. From our point of view, unfortunately, Kumar Sangakkara won’t be available for the Sri Lanka XI because he has county commitments and he is not sure if he will be released by his county,” added the SLC CEO.
“We have also spoken to Mahela (Jayawardene) and while he too has a prior commitment, he has said he will try his best to work around that, if possible, to be available for the match,” de Silva added.
